Edging Toward Synchronicity
by gldngrl7
Summary: This story is fourth in the Hanging On, Letting Go Series. Recent events and life changing decisions bring Mon-El's psychological issues to the forefront. Kara's attempts to help have mixed results. Secrets revealed can have catastrophic consequences
1. Chapter 1

Title: Edging Towards Synchronicity

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: March 11, 2017

Chapters:

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes:

I'm not even kidding around anymore. This story is about a journey to intimacy and that intimacy includes heavy elements of BDSM, Dominance/submission, and Daddy-kink. If you know you're not into that or interested in seeing more, walk away now. Kid gloves are off, folks.

If you would like to know whom to thank for this upping of my smut game, you can thank the Anti who left me a hate comment on my last story telling me that I was going to hell and that I needed to "atone for my sins" for "hating woman". To this Anti: If you thought I had "out-grossed" Fifty Shades of Gray before… ** _you ain't seen nothing yet_**. Just so you know…"This was all for you, Damien. All for you!" Enjoy. And know that there's so much more where this came from. I take your hate as encouragement.

Dedicated to my fam member mon-kai-el and dirty bitches squad (aka The Dark Side) whose dirty talk showed me that I could take the kid gloves off. Stay thirsty, my friend.

For those of you who care…there is in fact plot. And it moves forward and everything.

PSA: If there are any Babysubs out there who read this and think, 'this is me' and you don't know what to do. If you want to talk, message me. It's important that you know this: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU! Not a damn thing, and don't ever let anyone tell you differently

 _Yeah, you are my dream_

 _There's not a thing I won't do._

 _I'll give my life up for you,_

 _'Cause you are my dream._

 _And baby, everything that I have is yours,_

 _You will never go cold or hungry._

 _I'll be there when you're insecure_

 _-Chris Brown - "Next to You"_

Chapter 1/8

"Come again?"

"I'm Valor," Mon-El repeats his confession. "I'm the…guy. It was me." He turns to Kara seeking encouragement, which she provides with a subtle nod. He pulls his hands out of the pockets of his jeans and clasps them behind his back, as though he's not quite certain how to stand – how to present himself in this situation. "I was out after curfew," he recounts the event of the early morning. "I heard the car crash into the guardrail and from the distress of the vehicle, determined that a rescue would never be mounted in time, and so I chose to render assistance."

"You…rendered assistance?" J'onn echoes, flummoxed by the professional sound of Mon-El's phrasing. Seems that someone has been paying attention to DEO operational reports when J'onn had just assumed that the only thing the Daxamite had invested in was the length of Supergirl's skirt. Perhaps he had underestimated Mon-El.

"That's correct," Mon-El confirms, cringing on the inside as he waits for the explosion.

J'onn J'onzz grits his teeth together and releases a deeply held breath, his nostrils flaring noticeably. He's wrangling his anger with truly admirable control. "I believe I recall you checking in at midnight last night, Mon-El. Was I mistaken?"

"No, sir," he gulps, suddenly understanding why Winn sits a little straighter in his chair when J'onn focuses that intense gaze upon him.

"So, if I'm hearing you correctly…last night you left the building after curfew."

Mon-El holds up his index finger. "If we're being completely honest…"

"We'd _better_ be completely honest," J'onn growls, wishing, not for the first time that he could read Kryptonian and Daxamite minds.

"Okay…so it wasn't just last night. I've been sneaking out a few nights a week for a while now."

"Which is expressly forbidden in the agreement that allows you free run of this facility instead of being confined to a cell."

"Yes," Mon-El corroborates.

Sensing that Mon-El is struggling, Kara steps in to defend him. "He can't sleep, J'onn," she adds. "He can't sleep, and the only way he can stay awake—"

"Kara," Mon-El interrupts her before she can confess everything on his behalf. These are his sins to confess; his responsibility, not hers. "Let me," he says, turning back to J'onn. "I have trouble sleeping, and if I—"

"Nightmares?" J'onn interrupts. J'onn stands silently for a long moment, a heavy weight, like a blanket, dropping over the room. Finally, he looks up, pinning Mon-El with his stare, squinting his eyes as though attempting to see something just beyond his field of vision.

"Yeah," Mon-El replies simply, ruefully clasping his hands together until the knuckles go white.

J'onn nods, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning up against the table behind him. "There's not one of us in this room that doesn't know exactly what you're going through right now," he reminds the younger man. "Kara and I both know what it's like to lose our worlds. You should have come to one of us about this before it became a problem."

"I thought I could handle it," Mon-El rationalizes.

"And how is that working out for you so far?" J'onn snarks.

Ral stands behind the Martian sticking his tongue out at him like a recalcitrant child. Mon-El would laugh if he wasn't so terrified that he is already going to lose every bit of freedom he's tried so hard to earn. "Admittedly…not my best plan," Mon-El answers with a gulp.

"Not your best…" J'onn repeats incredulously, and Mon-El feels a shiver race down his spine. "You couldn't sleep, and so you felt a walk around the block at three in the morning would do the trick?"

"Electricity," he confesses. "I can use electricity to energize myself and to repair cells damaged by sleep deprivation. I mean…at least that's what it feels like is happening. But if I siphon the electricity from the DEO you'd notice and it could make the building's security more vulnerable to attack than it already is."

"Speaking of vulnerable security," J'onn stands up, straightening his shoulders. "How did you get out of the building unseen?"

"It helps that I can move at super speed," he answers, studying the tips of his boots. "But the door to the roof is a vulnerable spot, which I…took advantage of."

"We don't have a team on the roof during the third shift." J'onn squeezes his eyes shut, mentally kicking himself.

"It's easy to slip out and prop the door open with a rock, so I can sneak back in later. As long as I'm back by six, no one's been the wiser."

"How many times?" J'onn sighs as it all begins to sink in. The status quo he's worked hard to maintain is about to change. Security will have to be revamped. Again. And then there's the addition of a new, unexpected superhero that will have to be dealt with.

"A few nights a week."

"Starting when?"

"About three weeks ago."

J'onn's bowed head snaps up as he recalls the events of three weeks ago. "The blackout in Grid 9. Was that you?"

Mon-El shrugs his shoulders and lifts his hands remorsefully. "I was trying to figure out how to regulate the power exchange, and I overcompensated. I think I have a handle on it now though." The last part of Mon-El's declaration trails off sheepishly at the extremely dissatisfied expression on the Martian's face.

"Well that's just great, isn't it?" J'onn shouts, his voice just slightly lower than a roar. "You think you have a handle on it now? You've been sneaking out of DEO custody, going against the express conditions of your agreement, but it's okay because you have a handle on it now?"

Kara steps closer to Mon-El's side, and he leans down to her ear. "What's happening right now?"

"He's just venting," Kara whispers, hopefully. J'onn continues waving his arms about, but his shouting has changed into frustrated mumbling. Mon-El opens his mouth to speak, but Kara's hand clamps down on his bicep. "Not now," she instructs. "Just wait."

"Perhaps it's best to just let him burn himself out…like a fire," Ral suggests, circling around the mumbling Martian as though he is an inscrutably abstract work of art.

"He's just angry at the moment," Kara confirms. "More at himself than at you, I think. He'll circle back around…eventually."

"Is there an estimated time on when that might happen?" Mon-El asks.

"I can hear you both!" J'onn snaps. Both Kara and Mon-El straighten their spines in response to taking J'onn's unwelcomed notice.

"I think he's back," Ral whispers through clenched teeth.

For a moment, Kara is certain that J'onn is preparing to shapeshift into his Martian persona. "Explain to me again about the electricity," J'onn demands.

Mon-El takes a deep, settling breath, places his hands on his hips, and begins to explain to J'onn how and why he siphons the electricity and from where. Explanations are long-winded, and at several points J'onn quizzes Mon-El with questions, which Mon-El answers with alacrity.

Kara watches them together, her heart swelling with affection for her boyfriend. He stands up to J'onn, and he doesn't back down; he doesn't crumble beneath the older man's intimidating personality. That he's nearly ready to become a superhero, she has no doubt—she just needs him to stop doubting his own ability before he talks himself out of success.

He will be a true partner in every way; she can see that now – if only she can find a way to help him through this grief that he hardly acknowledges. It frightens her to spend too much time thinking about the width and breadth of his losses, perhaps because it reminds her so much of her own, or perhaps because she can no longer pretend that he's just another alien refugee on this planet among a host of others. He's more than that. He's her chosen mate now, which means his pain becomes her pain and his tribulations become her tribulations.

She rests a hand on her lower stomach as she watches her mate converse and negotiate with their supervisor. There could be more, she knows; a future potentially growing inside of her for which neither of them planned, nor expected.

J'onn and Mon-El debate over the best way to deal with the latter's emotional issues – their supervisor insisting that Mon-El sit down several times a week with a trauma counselor on the DEO staff. Predictably, Mon-El rolls his eyes and releases a sigh of frustration. "Talking to a stranger is the last thing I need," he bemoans.

"Well, this can't continue, Mon-El," J'onn maintains.

"You don't need to worry about me."

"It's part of my job to be concerned about the people who work under me."

Mon-El touches his chest with a faux-dramatic air. "Oh, I _work_ for you now?" he asks. "That almost makes it sound like I wasn't accused of attempted assassination and then locked in a cell after I woke from stasis. And then, even after I was proven innocent, treated like a criminal who needed minding twenty-four hours a day for the first few months I was here."

"For which you have received multiple apologies, both from me and from Kara."

"But still I have to wonder: 'what makes me so special?'" he asks. "Did the alien who _actually_ tried to assassinate the President spend months on lockdown at the DEO while she was vetted?"

J'onn's facial expression goes dangerously neutral. "Slow your roll there, Brother," Ral cringes. "Are you _trying_ to end up back in that cell?"

"You weren't in control of your powers," J'onn rationalizes, his voice calm and even but his eyes a maelstrom of emotion. "You injured a civilian your first time off base, do you remember that? We couldn't release you into the populace until we were reasonably certain you wouldn't hurt anyone accidentally. Which I was just about ready to recommend, but now with this electricity thing…"

The back and forth of their disagreement continues, neither one reaching a consensus or an acceptable solution to the problem at hand. Their raised voices spin about in her head, and all she can think is that she still doesn't know enough about what's going on in Mon-El's head: Valor, his lack of sleep, his night-time exploits with office building transformers and still she senses that more is going on with him than he's letting on. He's terrified of something; scared enough that he's holding it back from her.

But why? Does he think she will think less of him? _Care_ less for him?

Kara recalls her first months on Earth and how transient it had all seemed then. Clark had been unable to take custody, so instead she had been carted off to the Danvers'. Ostensibly rejected by her flesh and blood, Kara had struggled to trust Eliza and Jeremiah, mostly because as a xenobiologist, Eliza seemed like more of a threat to her in the beginning. Kara questioned whether she would be anything more than a science experiment to her foster mother.

Over time, Eliza had put Kara at ease, eventually gaining her trust by treating her like a member of the family, setting out the same rules for Kara as she did for Alex, and providing her with whatever physical affection Kara would allow. The road to emotional security was laid out brick by brick; it was a slow and painful process, but ultimately it led Kara to a place of, if not peace, at least reconciliation with all that had happened to her and her world.

Something with which Mon-El is clearly struggling right now.

"He should move in with me," Kara blurts.

The argument between J'onn and Mon-El instantly ceases, and both men's heads snap in her direction. "What was that?" J'onn asks, as though he hadn't heard her correctly.

" _What_ was that?" Mon-El's head tilts to the side, his eyes widening while his mouth drops open with incredulous speculation.

"What _was_ that?" Ral leans toward Mon-El, whispering in his ear.

Kara freezes in the headlights of their synchronized stares, at first unable to believe the words coming out of her own mouth. Then, as if her subconscious had understood what was needed long before her conscious mind did, she catches up. It makes sense, she realizes. He needs to feel emotionally secure if he's ever going to trust her enough to let her see what's really going on with him. By getting him out of this place, offering him a home, both in her heart and in her loft, she is offering him the security he needs on multiple levels. "I think it's for the best," she proclaims, squaring her shoulders.

"I don't understand," J'onn announces, shaking his head.

"Mon-El shouldn't be here," Kara decides. "It's not doing him any good. He needs a home and security and a place that doesn't make him feel like he's under surveillance whenever he's there. And he's right, J'onn. He's not a threat anymore."

"Not that he ever was," Ral pipes up.

"Not that he ever was," Kara echoes, causing Mon-El's eyebrows to furrow at the coincidence.

J'onn places his hands on his hips and stares down at Kara, his eyes glancing back and forth between Mon-El and Kara. "There's something else going on here," he concludes. "Isn't there? I can't read your minds, but I can sense it."

"Noooo," Mon-El shakes his head, attempting to deny their connection for Kara's sake. Were it up to him, he'd joyfully spill his guts, but they hadn't talked about how to announce their relationship or if they ever would. Both Alex and Eliza know, and for now that was okay. But when Kara begins to nod, he grins and mirrors her nod. "Yes…okay," he changes his tune. "There's something going on here."

"Care to clue me in?" J'onn asks.

"Mon-El and I…are…"

"You are…?" J'onn presses, crossing his arms at his chest and waiting.

"We are mates," Mon-El finishes boldly. "As in…together."

Kara smiles softly, relieved that he'd made it sound so proper. "I know that may come as a bit of a shock to you—"

"The only shock is that it took so long," J'onn interrupts, actually rolling his eyes.

"Really?" Mon-El chuckles, perhaps just a tiny bit full of himself.

"There's been a pool for three months," J'onn deadpans. "I missed by four days."

"Great," Ral chuckles. "I love a mating pool. Ask what the buy-in was…."

Ignoring Ral, Mon-El instead asks, "J'onn…can I have a moment with Kara?"

J'onn complies and steps out of the room, mumbling, "Apparently, I have to make a phone call anyway."

After a moment, ensuring they won't be overheard, Mon-El turns to Kara and asks, "Are you sure this is what you want? I don't know much about this planet and its customs, but I know that moving in together is a _huge_ step. Huge!"

"I can't stand the thought of you sleeping here for another night, Mon-El," she answers. "This is no place for you. How can you possibly feel comfortable sleeping on a cot in the middle of what's essentially a military installation?"

Then she gives him 'the look', her most powerful weapons turning up to him, and suddenly he's drowning in an ocean of her making. "That is…a dirty pool," he says, squeezing his eyes shut to block out the sight.

"It's just 'dirty pool'," she corrects with a chuckle, leaning up against his firm body and placing a lingering kiss on his cheek. Her fingers toy with the belt loops on the waistband of his jeans, where none can see, despite the glass walls of the room. "Come home with me," she whispers, her voice all temptation and urgency. " _Be_ home with me."

"Say 'yes'," Ral pleads from behind him. "How can you say 'no' to that face?"

Mon-El sighs heavily. "Are you certain this is what you want? Because I'm pretty sure there are no take backs. Cohabitation is a serious commitment, Kara." He cups her head in his hands, holding her still so that there are no more illicit kisses. "I need you to be absolutely sure."

Never in a million years did Kara think her life would ever be moving this far, this fast. After all, nearly her entire life had been lived with a secret she feared exposing. But with Mon-El, none of that matters because he already knows all of her secrets. Or at least the big ones, anyway.

"I'm sure," she nods resolutely, her eyes refusing to budge from the steel-gray of his gaze. "Will you cohabitate with me?" she asks, with a hint of a giggle.

His thumbs caress her cheeks as his eyes search hers for any signs of self-doubt before finally making his choice. "Yes, Kara Zor-El…I will cohabitate with you. Assuming J'onn says it's okay."

"He will," she pronounces confidently. "And when he does, we can pack your things, and you won't have to come back here again, except for work."

"Good. Because I am sick of these gray walls," Ral chimes in, sighing with relief. "It's just a little too much like the throne room for my tastes."

"I admit…that does sound nice." Mon-El wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her closer. "But you know what sounds even nicer?"

"What?"

"Waking up with you," he replies, his voice soft and hopeful.

"That _does_ sound nice." Kara pulls him down into a searching kiss that ends long before either of them wants it to when J'onn barges back into the room.

"Break it up, lovebirds," he grumbles.

"Your timing sucks," Mon-El counters when he tears his lips away from Kara's.

"There had better not be any of _that_ happening where I can see it, either," J'onn says, referring to the kiss. "The DEO is not a place for romantic interludes. Do I make myself understood?"

Kara blushes at J'onn's bold statement (and the knowledge that it was too little, too late) calling out her romantic designs on her boyfriend. Predictably, Mon-El preens, a mischievous grin crossing his face. Kara nudges him with her elbow until the smile slides off his face, and his expression changes to a more appropriate response.

"Right," Mon-El agrees, reluctantly. "No romantic interludes in the building. Understood, sir." He snaps a sharp salute with no small amount of sarcasm.

Kara rolls her eyes at his antics and smacks him on the arm. "We understand, J'onn." She carefully calculates her level of seriousness to perfectly offset his sarcasm output.

J'onn rifles through one of the drawers of his filing cabinet before withdrawing a manila folder. "Obviously, there's paperwork to fill out. The best I can do…for now…is release him into your custody, Kara."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Kara speaks up, shaking her head.

"It's policy," J'onn replies.

"J'onn, Cadmus is getting their information on DEO movements from somewhere. There's already been one mole in-house, and I'm not convinced there aren't other sleepers."

"Kara doesn't think it's a good idea to make our relationship public knowledge," Mon-El adds.

"Nothing should change…officially. At least not until we find a way to clean house," she says. "They've already tried to use him against me once; I won't let it happen again." Her voice turns cold like iced over steel, and Mon-El can feel her determination in the pit of his stomach.

J'onn considers her request for a moment before nodding. He's not entirely sure they're operating at the highest levels of security either. "You'll be responsible for what happens when he's in your custody," he says to Kara before leveling his gaze on Mon-El. "If I were you, I would take that very, _very_ seriously."

The smile melts from Mon-El's face, the sparkle fading as his eyes take on a new level of solemnity. "I will," Mon-El replies, accepting the Martian's challenge.

Kara quickly grabs Mon-El's hand and squeezes it enthusiastically with her own, their eyes darting towards one another's before turning back to J'onn. Excitement is written plainly across both of their faces.

"Nothing will happen," Kara insists, her faith in Mon-El unshakeable and absolute.

"Mon-El, this doesn't change the arrangement made with M'Gann. You will still be required to check in at DEO at least once a day during the probationary period."

"And…how long is the probationary period?" Mon-El inquires, seeking clarification since this was a term J'onn had not used before.

"It's as long as I say it is. Let's say six months for now." J'onn's eyes squinted, as though calculating Pi to the 27th digit in his head. "If Kara hasn't gotten sick of you by then and kicked you out…we'll re-evaluate."

"Fair enough," Mon-El agrees with alacrity. If Kara grew sick of him and his presence and threw him out in six _weeks_ , he wouldn't be a bit surprised.

"We should go pack his things," Kara suggests, grabbing Mon-El's arm as though anxious to be on their way.

"Not so fast," J'onn belays. "We still have this little matter of a new superhero to discuss."

"We were _this_ close to escaping," Ral snarks, snapping his fingers for effect.

Mon-El sighs and grimaces. "Winn says there's a suit."

Both J'onn's and Kara's eyes widen in surprise, and they ask in unison, "There is?"

"Well…there's a design for a suit," he qualifies. "Winn said something about having to license some special Kelbar from Kord Industries to make it, though."

"Is it possible you mean 'Kevlar'?" J'onn asks.

"Right...that's what I said," Mon-El nods. "He says it can be woven into a material and that it's rated for fire, so it won't burn up in high temperatures. But mostly it's bulletproof."

"Kord Industries already has several government contracts," J'onn muses, coming to a decision. "I'll have Winn license the technology and get an estimate on how long it will take to build."

The sudden image of Winn taking Mon-El's measurements for the suit flashes through her brain, and she responds with an involuntary snort and giggle. When Mon-El turns to look at her, she covers her mouth to hide her grin. He knows instantly from the sparkle in her eye that she is imagining something to do with the suit.

"What is it?" he asks with a resigned tilt of his head.

"Nothing," she chuckles. "Just try not to get nervous when he measures your inseam. He's very professional." It is the secret reason behind why Supergirl wears a skirt instead of tights.

"Isn't there a machine you can get into?" he wonders. "We have those on Daxam."

"Not in our budget," J'onn shakes his head.

"I'm sure you'll both survive the process intact." Kara claps her hands excitedly. "I can't wait for the fittings."

"For the time being, I think it's best if Valor rides the bench," J'onn posits.

"Not a good idea," Kara disagrees. "CatCo wants the exclusive on this, and James assigned the story to me."

"I appreciate the fact that this could be a career-making opportunity for you, Kara, but—"

"That's not it, J'onn," she denies, and then, "okay, maybe a little. But this will let me…us…control the story. This way, we can decide what the public gets to consume. In order for it to work, he has to be out there, black hoodie and all. Visible, but not _too_ visible. Doesn't have to be every day," she qualifies. "Just enough to keep the public interested."

"This story needs to get out there fast, because CatCo's not the only outlet that will be gunning for it," J'onn points out.

"Getting an exclusive and getting it out as soon as possible will take some of the heat off," Kara points out another benefit of spinning the story.

"Fine," J'onn agrees. "So he's out there making a name for himself. Until the suit's ready, I want him in a vest, though. There's no telling when some crazy is going to take potshots at a superhero – it's happened to us more than once."

Kara chews on her bottom lip, her brow crinkling in concern. "I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of him taking those calls. Maybe I should be handling the heists and robberies. Just in case," she decides.

"And suddenly, it's like we're not even in the room," Ral sighs, rolling his eyes. "Maybe we should just go pack your things while they decide the rest of your life for you."

"This leaves what for me, exactly?" Mon-El pipes up. "Saving kittens from trees and puppies from drainpipes? Lecturing school children on safe street crossing habits? C'mon!"

"Mon-El…" Kara reaches for him, attempting to reassure him.

"No, Kara. Either I'm in this thing, or I'm not. Look…I get that there're going to be situations that you're better suited to handle because of the flying and the heat vision and…other stuff, but I'm not interested in having the two of you decide what I can or can't do out in the field. If you have to do that, then maybe I shouldn't be out there in the first place."

A full head of steam built up, Mon-El turns and storms out of the room, while Kara stares after him, dumbfounded. She pivots back around to J'onn, her hands outstretched as though to enquire of J'onn what he plans to do about this new wrinkle.

"Don't look at me," J'onn grumbles. "That's your mate. You should talk to him. Pack his things, take him home, and sometime between all of that, you should maybe apologize for trying to run his life. If you feel like apologizing on my behalf…that would be all right too."

Kara pouts a bit but nods before turning to leave.

"One last piece of advice, before you go…if you'll indulge me," the Martian says before she can leave.

"What is it?"

"People say things in the heat of anger that they don't mean. My wife and I…we had a lot of arguments in the early days of our marriage because we were young and both quick to anger. Eventually, we learned that we were much better prepared to talk things through and to hear apologies, if we gave each other time to cool off."

"Cool off," she echoes pensively. "So…fifteen minutes?"

"Better make it an hour," J'onn counters and then waves her away. "Go save some puppies out of drainpipes."

Mon-El has never really been angry with her, not since the nature of their relationship has changed, and the idea of earning his ire rankles her. Her instinct is to go to him and make it right. But if J'onn is correct, that action could result in even more hurt feelings, and she doesn't want that. There's so much she doesn't understand about what's going on with him right now, that the idea of making it worse for him—of being the reason for one of his problems—makes her feel sick inside. Kara nods her head, deciding reluctantly to follow the Martian's advice, even though her heart screams at her to go to her mate and soothe his anger, in any way possible.

She leaves the room without looking back, determined to find something else to fix.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

_Hold_

 _Hold on_

 _Hold on to me_

 _'_ _Cause I'm a little unsteady_

 _A little unsteady_

 _If you love me, don't let go_

 _-The Renegades – "Unsteady"_

Chapter 2/8

"Okay, clearly I am stirring up some unresolved feelings inside you…"

"Wait a minute," Mon-El insists, his feet padding steadily on the treadmill at an easy two-minute-per-mile pace. "Isn't that what you are? A manifestation of unresolved feelings?"

"You're not entirely wrong. But I meant _more_ unresolved feelings. I don't know if you've noticed, but you have a lot of them."

"As evidenced by the hallucination of my dead friend."

"Yes, and I'd really like it if we could deal with _me_ first. I think I'm a little more pressing in the overall scheme. Also, something tells me that the unresolved feelings about what just happened in there are going to take care of themselves."

"Fine," Mon-El capitulates. "How can I help you?" He rolls his eyes, utterly aware that he's offering his assistance and his undivided attention to a figment of his imagination.

"Okay, let's start with this. We are cohabitating with Kara. Now…I know there's a lot to be happy about here. Making your latching official—"

"Mating," Mon-El hastily corrects.

"Pot-ay-to, po-tah-to," Ral chuckles, disregarding the correction.

"It's not the same," Mon-El insists. "Not here, it's not. There's mating first, and then there's latching…if both parties agree. As I understand it."

"I think we both know where this is going, Brother. Why obfuscate it?"

"Because…"

"Because she doesn't know everything about you yet?" Ral offers.

"And when she does, this relationship will be over faster than you can say 'liar, liar – pants on fire'."

"Why would anyone-?"

"I don't know. It's just a crazy thing they say."

"Maybe you're not giving her enough credit...?" Ral shrugs.

"Our history when it comes to all things Daxam-related isn't exactly stellar." Mon-El feels his tense muscles finally begin to loosen as he slips into the rhythm of his run. Ral leans against the concrete wall in front him, his arms crossed while he strokes his chin thoughtfully. A stance he remembers well from the times when Ral's devious mind was pressed into service in order to extract Mon-El from some mischief in which he had inevitably found himself embroiled. "What are you thinking about?" Mon-El asks, as if he doesn't already know.

"She suspects something," Ral announces. "We'll have to be careful in our communications."

"I'll leave you secret notes on the fridge," he whispers, conspiratorially.

"Will you be serious?"

"I don't think that's what you really want," Mon-El answers.

Unexpectedly, Ral's form shifts, and the image in his mind suddenly wears the form of a once beautiful young woman, blood pouring down her face from a savagely torn scalp. "Help me," she begs. Her hand, clutching a small bouquet of desert blooms, reaches out for him. His feet falter on the treadmill, and before he can catch himself he's face down, the moving belt spitting him off the machine like he's a nasty tasting morsel.

When his body stops rolling, Mon-El comes to rest on his back, eyes staring up the fluorescent lamps on the ceiling. "What in the name of Bask!" he curses. He isn't hurt, of course, just slightly disoriented and unable to get the sight of the woman out of his mind, as though she's burned on his retinas. He digs his fingers into his eyes, attempting to erase the image. Mercifully, when his eyes open, Ral is standing above him, peering down upon him.

"Very graceful," he comments, his eyes blinking slowly as though unimpressed by Mon-El's full-bodied impression of tumbleweed.

"Stop doing that," Mon-El groans between gritted teeth.

"Doing what?"

"Changing into _her_."

"Oh, that wasn't me," Ral explains, lodging his hands on his hips. "That was all you."

"But why would I…?"

"Unresolved…blah, blah, blah," Ral says, checking beneath his fingernails as though their cleanliness might soon be witnessed by someone of incredible import. "Get used to it, my friend. Something tells me it's going to be happening more and more often."

"That doesn't make any sense!"

"Doesn't it?" Ral wonders. "It doesn't make sense that the more secure you start to feel in this life, the more your mind might start to loosen its stranglehold on everything you've been keeping so tightly locked down? Seems legit to me. Maybe J'onn was right. Maybe you _should_ see a Preceptor."

"They call them therapists here."

"Right. That's what I said."

Mon-El rolls over onto his stomach before popping up to his feet. He stares down at the still-running treadmill, its low-pitched hum now sounding to him for all the world like an aggressive growl. Done for the night, Mon-El reaches over and yanks the emergency-stop tab from the machine's face panel, something he hadn't had time to think about doing when he was busy falling ass-over-teakettle. "Useless piece of shi—"

Kara walks in on what looks like Mon-El abusing and cursing the gym equipment. She had hoped that the hour she took to run a few errands and do some shopping would have given him enough time to cool off, but just in case, she came prepared with her mea culpa. "I really hope it's truly the machine you're angry at and not me," she says, interrupting the angry glare-fest directed at the treadmill.

Mon-El spins around at the sound of her voice, finding that the Supergirl from an hour ago is gone and that Kara Danvers stands in her place, her black floral skirt and pink blouse striking the perfect balance between sexy and innocent. He grimaces, embarrassed to be caught raging at an inanimate object.

"Though it's better than being caught talking to a hallucination," Ral adds to Mon-El's thoughts. "Go with it."

Her brow is crinkled with concern, more for herself than for him it seems, and for some reason, she's waving a white gym towel at him. "Kara?"

"Are you still angry with me?" she wonders, waving the towel again. Perhaps she should have given him two hours to cool off instead of one, especially if his anger is spreading to encompass harmless gym equipment.

"What's with the…?" he nods his head toward the towel.

"Oh!" she exclaims, realizing that he's lacking crucial context to comprehend her display. "It's a white flag," she exposits. "Or at least it's the best I could come up with on short notice."

"A white flag?" he queries, curious about what lies behind this demonstration.

"In most Earth cultures," she explains, strolling towards him, "a white flag is used to indicate surrender by one party for a battle to come to an end. It's also used to request mercy for the conceding party."

Drawn to her as though she's the center of his gravity, he moves in her direction until they meet in the middle of the room. He knows he's not supposed to touch her or exhibit any physical affection for her while in the DEO, but he theorizes that this policy is likely to remain a work in progress – perhaps for a bit longer than a while. "You've never needed a white flag to surrender to me before," he smirks, the lids of his steel-gray eyes drifting to half-mast.

"You've never been this angry with me before," she points out. "I mean, not since we…started seeing each other."

"Seeing each other?" he muses, interest piqued by her use of the term. "That doesn't sound quite complex enough for what's happening between us. Does it?" He wants to reach for her, pull her into his embrace but twists his own gym towel between his hands instead.

"No," she agrees, softly. "It doesn't. It's not nearly complex enough. I just know that you're my partner…my mate…I chose you—" she smiles as soon as the words are out of her mouth, knowing what he'll do next.

" _I_ chose _you_ ," he insists, his smile matching hers.

Her lips tingle with the need to brush against his, to feel his breath mingling with hers as though the very act charges the air around them, turning it into a renewable power source. Kara bites on her lower lip in an attempt to stifle the rush of blood there, before she opens her mouth to speak. "Why do I get the feeling we're going to be having this argument for a long, long time?"

Mon-El's eyes widen, and a sadness quickly passes through them, like catching a glimpse of something in the corner of one's eye, only to turn and find that perception mistaken. "I hope so," he replies. "You have no idea how much."

"I didn't mean it the way it sounded," she rushes, misinterpreting the source of his fleeting sadness. "J'onn and I got ahead of ourselves. We shouldn't have been talking about you like you weren't in the room. Making decisions about what you should do without consulting you first."

"Kara, look, I know that you don't think I've trained enough—that I'm not ready—"

"No, but that's not it," she interrupts, grabbing for him, her hands on his shoulders. "It's your lead allergy," she explains. "There's so much of it out there, and it can all be used to hurt you. I just want to make sure you're as protected as possible before you take on those calls, that's all."

"Really?"

"I couldn't…" She bites her lip, her eyes glancing away from him as a blush stains her cheeks.

"What is it?" he presses, cupping her cheek to turn her face back towards his.

"Remember this morning when I was worried that the DEO would send a tactical team to find you, and you joked that there were worse ways to die?"

Mon-El recalls that she hadn't found his joke funny and had insisted they issue a moratorium on gallows humor. "I remember," he nods, with a shrug. "What about it?"

"Cadmus almost killed you and…" Her guts clench inside as she teeters on the edge of a monumental confession, just a stiff breeze away from tipping over the precipice. A frustrated moan rises in her, slipping through her tightly pressed lips as her eyes squeeze tightly shut, "…and Medusa."

"That was a long time ago," Mon-El says, his voice taking on a soft, soothing tone.

"It doesn't feel that way," she counters. "It feels like it just happened. Mon-El…I couldn't bear it if anything happened to you. If you were hurt out there, I wouldn't be able to…" Her confession trails off as she becomes lost in his gaze, her blue eyes rising to meet his soft gray regard. She shakes her head, as though unable to continue, and seeing her growing discomfort, Mon-El takes over, filling the silence she left behind.

"I feel the same," he admits. "Every time you go out there."

"But—"

"You're _not_ invincible, Kara," he interjects. "You can tell yourself that all you like, but that doesn't make it true. I know that bullets can't hurt you like they can hurt me, but that doesn't mean that nothing can! And…at the risk of making _you_ angry, you can be reckless, Kara – rushing into dangerous situations without gaining a full understanding of the risks. I _know_ who you are," he insists. "I _see_ what you can do. But that doesn't mean I'm _ever_ going to stop worrying. I understand your concerns. I live them every day. But you've never backed down when facing an enemy that could hurt you. I don't understand why you think I shouldn't do the same."

She feels her own brow crinkling as though to mirror his concerned countenance and raises a hand to rub at the overactive muscles there. Here is a topic they've never really discussed, not before they became involved and not after. Kara knows her own feelings on the matter, recalling vividly the events of the Cadmus hostage-taking and his brush with death in the form of the Medusa virus created by her own father.

Mon-El has only been in her life for a few short months and already she's witnessed his near death on two separate occasions. And both of those occasions occurred _before_. Before she let him in. Before she chose him. Before she learned that she can't breathe without him. Long before discovering that her body sings when he touches her, when he whispers against her heated skin, and when his eyes drift down to her lips, gazing at them like they're his salvation.

She'd kept him at such a distance then, refusing to know him, talking a good game about his potential, but really refusing to see him as anything other than a Daxamite wastrel. She'd treated him accordingly, facing him in the direction she wanted him to go but citing his cultural upbringing each time he stepped off of her pre-approved path. Cursing the place of his birth as though it was something better forgotten to the ravages of an extinction level event, rather than a culture worthy of remembrance _because_ of the loss of so many lives. It wasn't just a planet that died but billions of hearts that stopped beating, and the last heartbeat remaining, stands before her now.

And more than anything, she wants that heartbeat to endure because…because she loves him. She loves him! Her stomach drops to her feet, and everything inside of her freezes as her own realization paralyzes her. Her tongue turns to hot sand, and her hands begin shaking. She loves him, and she doesn't have the first clue if he feels the same – if she's out on this limb all by herself. It's like when she was a child, first learning to fly. The wind would lift her, carry her for a few moments, but then the ground would come rushing, rushing up to her, and all of her efforts, all of that soaring, would be for naught. Each attempt leading to crushing disappointment until one day she just…stopped.

Maybe she isn't ready.

"Kara?" Mon-El's fingers brush against her cheek, and she flinches from it slightly, raising his distress level. He snatches his hand from her skin, his fingers tingling as though venom were spreading through his bloodstream.

Mon-El's voice interrupts her revelatory reflection. Her thoughts had taken her down a bit of a rabbit hole from which she struggles to emerge. "What?" she mutters.

"You okay, Kara?" he demands, his concern ratcheting up a few notches and filtering through the tone in his voice.

His voice brings her out of her haze, his face coming into clear, sharp focus. His lips are tight, and his brows have snapped together to create a deep crevice between them, but the most striking thing are his eyes: so deep and fathomless, those bottomless grays that hide nothing when his thoughts center on her; the emotions floating on the surface there inscrutable to her only because of her lack of experience in this arena. If only she could read their messages with confidence. If only her own feelings didn't cause her to second-guess his.

"I'm fine," she lies, shaking off her petrification like loose tree bark.

"No, you're not," he contradicts. She's fearful suddenly, her eyes turning shiny blue, the crinkle in her forehead unmistakable to him. "You think I don't know how you look when something's bothering you?"

"I don't…." she tries but trails off.

"Are you having second thoughts?" he asks gently, assuming he's found the root of the problem.

"Second thoughts?"

"It's okay to change your mind," he promises. "I can keep staying here until I can afford to get my own place."

"No," she answers, violently shaking her head back and forth. "I haven't changed my mind. I'm not going to change my mind." He's trying not to look overly hopeful, and she can't bear the thought of taking that hope from his eyes. She wants him there, in her home, in her bed; promising to make breakfast in the mornings but rarely following through, leaving his pants strewn across her furniture, and putting too much soap in the washing machine. She wants all of _that_. More than, she realizes now, she has ever wanted anything in her recollection. Her hand brushes against her belly, not enough so that he would notice but just enough to remind her. She wants _all_ of him. Even the part he doesn't know about yet. Reaching up, she presses a kiss on his lips, quick enough that if they're lucky, it might go unnoticed by the camera's monitors.

"Are you sure?" he asks again. "Because you don't seem that certain at the moment. You seem a little…lost."

"I'm not lost," she insists, staring unwaveringly in his eyes. "I know what I want." Kara places a hand on his face, the pad of her thumb tracing the orbital bone of his upper cheek just beneath his eye. "Let's go home, Mon-El," she whispers.

Judging the truth in her eyes, Mon-El breathes a sigh of relief and nods. "I'll pack my things."

"I'll help," she offers.

She takes his hand as they walk out of the gym and head towards his quarters, loving the way it feels when his long, graceful fingers interlace with hers. Loving him and the way he looks at her, eyes soft and unguarded.

"So…this white flag policy," he wonders, information gathering for future reference. "Does it work this well for all disagreements?"

Kara laughs at what she believes to be a jest – the kind of joke he would make to see her smile. "Why?" she teases. "Planning on using the technique?"

The pit of his stomach roiling with the stress of confining secrets bursting toward freedom and mayhem, he forces a smile and hopes she doesn't notice the difference. "I have a feeling I might need to over the next few months. I've heard that living together can be an adjustment. Just…be patient with me?"

Kara squeezes his hand. "Promise," she vows.

In his quarters, it doesn't take very long to pack the modest belongings in his footlocker and to grab a few other things he's hoarded in the months since his arrival. Kara requested a ride home from one of the SUVs in the DEO motor pool, thinking it imprudent to use any but normal means of transport in this situation. Less than half an hour after leaving the gym, they stand in the fourth floor corridor of her loft apartment.

"I got something for you," she announces, her hesitant smile belied by the mixture of sparkling mischief and excitement in her eyes.

"You did?" he teased, setting the footlocker down in front of the door. "A surprise?"

Kara nods, digging around in her purse until she finds what she stashed there earlier. She removes a Supergirl keychain with two keys attached and a tiny bow wrapped around the ring itself. "Your keys," she says.

Mon-El laughs but feels his heart race and his stomach flip flop, a shiver of heat racing down his spine. "For me?" he teases.

"For you."

"A Supergirl keychain?" he wonders.

Kara shrugs. "They were selling them at the hardware store where I had the keys cut. I couldn't help myself."

"I'll be able to carry a piece of you wherever I go now," he says, his storm-cloud eyes growing darker as the pupils expand right before her eyes. "Even when I can't be near you."

Kara finds the notion odd but still romantic. Since their relationship became physical, when have they been unable to be near one another? Mon-El is a romantic at heart—she's suspected this truth for a long time—one of the many things she loves about him. "Care to do the honors?" she suggests, indicating the door in front of them.

He nods and unlocks the door, swinging it open before bending down to pick up his chest of things. When he stands up, his knees nearly buckle beneath him because what he sees before him isn't the loft he's already come to think of as a haven but a burning, exploding wreckage of the palace he escaped decades ago. He can feel the heavy, tugging grip of hands on his shoulders but is drawn instead to the image of Ral lying on the floor, bloodied to the point of being nearly unrecognizable, his broken legs twisted grotesquely to either side of his body.

"There's no time," Ral rasps weakly around horribly split lips. "You have to leave me! I'll only slow us both down. You can still escape."

He can feel the heat of its fires on his face; smell the burning flesh of victims screaming for help as they reach charred arms out for him. His ears fill with the sounds of wordless screams as chunks of plaster and stone fall all around him, narrowly missing him as if their strikes were never meant to land. He can feel the disturbance of the ground around him as they smash against the ground splintering into shards that fly into the air all around him. A molten rock crashes through the crumbling palace ceiling and explodes at Ral's feet, tearing apart the man's body before Mon-El's eyes and sending his remains flying in all directions. Mon-El flinches away from the carnage he can't un-see, and his fingers lose their grip on the box of his things. "Ral?"

Unaware of the onset of his distress, Kara enters the loft as always, dropping her purse and keys on the kitchen island and flipping through the mail she retrieved from the mailbox downstairs on their way up. It's not until she's startled by the sound of his footlocker crashing to the ground that she realizes he isn't in the apartment with her. The envelopes slip from her fingers when she spins back to the doorway, skittering across the flooring like shards of a broken dish.

"Mon-El?" she inquires. He's pale as a sheet, his eyes squeezing tightly shut as his breath comes in quick gasps. Immediately, she's by his side. "Mon-El, what is it?" When his eyes open, she recognizes the thousand-yard stare, one she'd heard Eliza talk about when she was younger. One she's seen on J'onn's face more than a few times. Not wishing to startle him, she refrains from touching his trembling body, using her voice instead to shake him from his memories. "Baby?" she calls, hoping for a response. Her voice is an approximation of cool and calm, while her insides are the exact opposite, performing frenetically like a squirrel jumping from limb to limb in a copse of trees. "Come back to me. Follow my voice. I'm right here, baby. I'm right here. Please?" she begs.

Her plea cuts through the mayhem, finding him in the middle of his hellish landscape. Melting the images away like hot water thrown on a still wet canvas. Slowly, the memory fades as Kara calls for him, softly but with total resolution, her voice becoming louder and louder than the din around him. The world comes back into focus, but it's too late because he's falling, falling to his knees and into her arms, taking her down with him. "Kara?" he croaks, as though he can't quite believe she's truly there with him. He can smell the violet-scent of her hair shampoo, and he clings to that like it's the lone piece of driftwood in a raging river.

"I'm here," she whispers into his neck, wrapping her arms around him, stroking his spine with long, soothing strokes. "I've got you."

"What happened?" he asks, everything spinning around him. "I was…" His breath comes hard and fast, on the verge of hyperventilation. "I was…" He chokes on the words and the air around him. When he opens his eyes again the world whites out, becoming obscenely bright as though a flashbulb has gone off in his face. He slams his eyes shut to block it out, seeing the negative imprint of her and the loft on the back of his eyelids.

"You were there," she hypothesizes, her voice shaking, a bit of fear seeping through. "Is that right? You were there?"

Eyes still shut, he nods into her hair.

"It's okay," she promises. "I'm here. I know what's happening to you. You're going to be all right. Just breathe."

Slowly, in excruciating increments, he comes back to himself, back to this place, to her arms, opening his eyes to see everything as he's come to know it. She wipes her fingers across his cheeks; erasing tears he hasn't realized are falling. His heart still races in his chest, and a fine sheen of perspiration has broken out on his face, as well as down his neck and chest.

"Talk to me," she begs, her voice barely above a whisper. "What happened?"

"I don't know," he confesses. "I opened the door, but instead of your apartment it was…"

"Daxam?"

"Yes. That day. There was screaming and fire and so much…screaming and the smell…"

"And you mentioned something," she presses, gently. "A name…maybe? Ral?"

Mon-El remembers and like a flash, the pain sears through his head, his vision going off like a flash bulb again for a split second. He presses the heels of his palms against his temples. "Ahhhhh," he moans, the pain streaking through him like an overload of electricity.

"It's okay," she declares. Something is triggering him, and the memories cause real, physical pain as they emerge. Like an infected boil in need of lancing, his memories require purging if he's ever to process his grief. Her gut twists inside at the knowledge of what she needs to do. "I know it hurts," she says. "Just tell me one thing. Who was Ral? Was he there with you?"

"Yes," he groans. "Everything was collapsing around us, the world was ending, and all he wanted was to see me safe."

"Why?" she wonders. "Who was he to you?"

"He's my…he's my…brother-in-bond," Mon-El confesses, the pain easing slightly, the tightness in his chest loosening.

Kara shakes her head. "I don't understand," she tells him. "What does that mean? Your brother by blood?"

The stabbing pain in his head turns into a dull but insistent throb as he shakes his head. His breathing, at last, returns to normal, his voice dropping in pitch as though his vocal chords are exhausted. "Not by blood. There's a word for it here, but I can't…step!" he proclaims. "Stepbrother. Is that right? Step? I can't think straight."

"Ral was your stepbrother?"

"Yes," he says, breathing a sigh of relief as the muscles in his neck and shoulders release some of the rock hard tension they've been holding. "His mother married my…father when we were just small boys. I was six, and he was seven."

It strikes her then, like a heavy mallet against a gong, that he's never mourned the loss of an individual to her knowledge. It all seems so vast, the loss of an entire world and everything that a person can identify with, that it's hard to see the personal loss sometimes. He's never mentioned his family or even any friends, and, to her shame, she's never asked. "You can talk about him, you know," she reminds him. "You can talk about…any of them. You probably need to."

Mon-El's eyes meet hers, finally, and the deep, incalculable grief in them shreds at her heart. "I don't want you to think I'm weak," he confesses, shame written plainly across her face.

"Mon-El, I would _never_ think that!" she replies, shocked and saddened at the direction of his thoughts. She pulls him into her embrace, wrapping her arms around him with bone-crushing strength. But instead of cringing at her power, his body melts into the hug as though allowing himself to be absorbed by her.

He wants to spill everything, all of his secrets and believe from the bottom of his heart that she will understand – that she won't be angered by it, or worse – sickened by him. Surviving the destruction of his world would be easy in comparison to watching the affection in her sparkling eyes turn to abhorrence. But he's a coward. He always has been, and he'll never be anything more, no matter how strong or fast his body is now or how impenetrable his skin.

Mon-El withdraws from the comfort of her embrace, undeserving of such sweet succor and casts his eyes about the room. "I need…" His shaky voice trails off. It occurs to him that they are still half in and half out of the apartment, the front door still open.

"What do you need?"

"I don't know," he realizes. He struggles to his feet, as if all the solar energy in his cells has deserted him. Reaching down, he picks up the footlocker he dropped, wondering where he's supposed to store his things.

"How about a cup of tea?" Kara suggests, as she stands to her feet. She closes the front door, flipping the deadbolt to lock it. She rarely locks the door of her loft when she's inside, practically daring intruders to try her, but tonight she makes an exception. "It's soothing. And then maybe…a hot shower before bed. That always helps me."

Mon-El swallows the bitter taste in the back of his throat, unable to banish the acrid flavor no matter how many times he tries. "Tea," he agrees with a weak nod. "Lots of sugar."

"You and your sweet tooth," she chuckles forcefully, hoping to lighten the mood as she grabs the kettle from atop the stove and begins filling the vessel with water from the tap.

Mon-El stands in the center of the apartment, footlocker in hand, wondering what he should do next; watching as she tinkers about the kitchen lighting the gas stove and turning the knob until the flame is just right. He wonders if he should just find an unobtrusive corner for his things. Movies don't really cover the protocol for this part of cohabitation. This is usually the part where the credits start to roll across the screen, he realizes, his stomach sinking to his knees.

Confused by his inaction, she glances around the room as she pulls out the ingredients for tea and two mugs. The loft is so…her. She's crammed the place with remembrances and decorative knick-knacks and more chairs than she can possibly fill even if everyone in her life came over at the same time.

She's filled every corner, every nook and cranny. There's not a spare inch of free space for him. Leaving the kettle to boil, she pastes a smile on her face. "Let's make some room," she declares. She takes the chest from him, carries it into her…their…bedroom, and places it on the bed. "I know, I have a _lot_ of stuff," she chuckles, covering her embarrassment at not noticing the problem earlier. Or being prepared for it. Had Kara been thinking ahead, it might have occurred to her to come home and clear a drawer or two for the man she loves, while he stewed in the DEO gym. But after getting his keys cut, she put out a three-alarm apartment fire instead. "Eliza says it's because I came here with nothing, and so I hoard things. Collect them."

"I may have gotten a little overexcited about purchasing clothes once I found the place of Good Will," he points out, completely able to see where she was coming from. He grew up with everything he could have ever needed, and though he is surprised to discover that he doesn't even miss most of those luxuries, he finds that he doesn't like the idea of being without something to wear. Most of his garments, in the beginning, had been borrowed or provided by the DEO. Mon-El finds that the clothes he purchased with his own currency are the ones that mean the most to him.

Kara speeds over to the rack of hanging clothes on the east side of the room and begins pulling blouses and skirts and slacks from the rack. She folds them in a blur of movement and stacks them on the bed. Leaving empty hangers behind, swinging back and forth on the rod, for him to use.

"You don't have to—" he begins, feeling guilty that she's making room to accommodate his presence.

"I do," she disagrees. "You deserve space for your own clothes and jackets. These are all summer clothes anyway," Kara rationalizes with a casual shrug. "I can store them under the bed until May and then switch out the winter clothes on the rack for the summer ones. It's fine."

Following her lead, Mon-El opens the chest and begins removing his clothing, beginning with his growing collection of jackets, which he hangs up on the empty plastic coat hangers. Over by the chest of drawers, positioned against the wall near the bathroom door, she clears the bottom drawer full of novelty sweatshirts and t-shirts she rarely uses. She can go through them later and perhaps find items to donate to the 'place of Good Will' this weekend. Mon-El hangs up his button down shirts on the rack, while she extracts his jeans, t-shirts, and pajamas from the footlocker and organizes them in the bottom drawer of her wardrobe. When she's done, there's space to spare.

She folds his boxers and rolls his socks, placing them meticulously in the top drawer alongside her socks and panties. The blood in her veins thrills at the sight, the visual evidence of their lives edging towards synchronicity. Despite her nervousness, she can't deny that she wants this. His things mixed in with hers.

"You're not a guest," she says, turning around to face him, her hands clasping nervously together. "I want you to understand that. This is _your_ home."

His lips lift up on one side in a cock-eyed smile, hands shoved deeply into his pockets as he rocks slightly back on his heels. But his eyes gaze into hers without flinching away for the first time since his temporary breakdown. " _Our_ home," he amends.

Kara's lips pursing coyly together as though trying to suppress a smile she really wants to give free reign. She nods. " _Our_ home."

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Edging Towards Synchronicity

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: March 11, 2017

Chapters:

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath. Intentional Anti hate is taken as encouragement and a challenge to up my game.

Author's Notes:

· I'm not even kidding around anymore. This story is about a journey to intimacy and that intimacy includes heavy elements of BDSM, Dominance/submission, and Daddy-kink. If you know you're not into that or interested in seeing more, walk away now. Kid gloves are off, folks.

· If you would like to know whom to thank for this upping of my smut game, you can thank the Anti who left me a hate comment on my last story telling me that I was going to hell and that I needed to "atone for my sins" for "hating woman". To this Anti: If you thought I had "out-grossed" Fifty Shades of Gray before… ** _you ain't seen nothing yet_**. Just so you know…"This was all for you, Damien. All for you!" Enjoy. And know that there's so much more where this came from. I take your hate as encouragement.

· Dedicated to my fam member mon-kai-el and dirty bitches squad (aka The Dark Side) whose dirty talk showed me that I could take the kid gloves off. Stay thirsty, my friend.

· For those of you who care…there is in fact a plot. And it moves forward and everything!

· PSA: If there are any Babysubs out there who read this and think, 'this is me' and you don't know what to do. If you want to talk, message me. It's important that you know this: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU! Not a damn thing, and don't ever let anyone tell you differently.

 _Oh, I know you're feeling insane_

 _Tell me something that I can explain, oh_

 _I'll hit the lights and you lock the doors_

 _Tell me all of the things that you couldn't before_

 _Don't walk away, don't roll your eyes_

 _They say love is pain, well darling, let's hurt tonight_

 _If this love is pain, well darling, let's hurt, oh tonight_

 _-OneRepublic – "Let's Hurt Tonight"_

Chapter 3/8

The ear-splitting whistle of the teakettle cuts through the comfortable silence between them, causing Mon-El to recoil noticeably and kick starting Kara's drive to tend to his psychological wounds. Rushing back to the kitchen, she steeps two bags of chamomile, while adding several lumps of sugar to his cup. She stirs his tea until the cubes lose their shape and become a grainy sludge at the bottom of the mug.

When Kara hands the steaming mug to Mon-El, he takes an immediate swig without regard to its boiling temperature, seeking the sweet comfort of sugar to combat the acrid taste that lingers on the back of his tongue. Thankfully, the bitter tang is already somewhat diminished, so the blast of sugar hitting his taste buds helps to erase the bizarre and unwelcome flavor.

He downs the cup in three gulps and takes it to the sink to rinse it out. "I think you're right," he says. "I think I'm going to take a hot shower and maybe call it a night. It's been a long day."

Kara nods, sliding up onto one of the stools that sits under the kitchen island and takes a sip of her tea. "It's not every day a person becomes a superhero," she comments after swallowing the hot liquid. "It's going to get harder for a while," she continues. "I just want you to be prepared. My first few months weren't exactly smooth sailing. I made more than a few mistakes, and the media—Cat—covered them all. But the people can be forgiving when you show them that your heart is in the right place. Just know that…I'm here for you for…whatever you need."

Mon-El considers her words, her advice, and recognizing that she's talking about more than just weathering the trials and tribulations of being a superhero. He wonders just how long he can compartmentalize the increasing amounts of stimuli racing through his brain, without seeking help. Curling his hand into his fist, he knocks his knuckles against the wooden surface of the kitchen island. "I'll keep that in mind," he promises. "Here's to hoping they take it easy on me. Gods know I'm nowhere near your league. I'm not half the person you are, Kara."

He walks away, leaving her speechless, her heart plummeting with sadness. Logically, she understands that survivor's guilt can wreak havoc on a person's self-worth—having had a singular experience with her own version of it. And in the beginning of their acquaintance, she had steadfastly refused to look beyond the fear that driving his survival instincts to see the good in him, buried deep though it was.

He is from Daxam, a culture that raised the act of deliberate ignorance to an art form so duteous it made the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel look like a kindergartner's finger painting. He grew up inside all of that, within the court of the Crown Prince no less—the belly of the beast—and, so in the beginning she expected arrogance, entitlement, and stubborn resistance to the assimilation to an entirely new culture. And while it's true that the dregs of that existed, she sees now that letting go of one's culture and the throwing off of one's upbringing is an undertaking much more easily discussed than accomplished. Even after thirteen years, Kara herself has yet to accomplish the feat.

Kara mentally castigates herself. She _could_ begin by ceasing to refer to the Prince's Court as 'the belly of the beast' even if only in her own head. That is merely the Kryptonian gossip of her hazy childhood memories talking, and already those types of thoughts have translated into action. Daxam and Krypton are long gone, and it is time both of them put their pasts in the rearview mirror. For Kara that means letting go of the things she learned about Daxam in her formative years so that she can stop associating them with the man she loves. As his lover—his mate—she must stop punishing him for any actions long past from which he clearly wishes to disassociate.

For Mon-El, putting his past away will be a much more visceral experience, she fears. She will have to use every tool in her shed to help him through it, if his breakdown this evening was any indication. Finishing her cup of tea, an idea strikes while she's rinsing out the mug and setting it out to dry. She hears the music from the radio in her… _their_ …bathroom turn on, and Kara whispers her gratitude to Rao because the extra noise should serve her purpose.

Digging into her purse, she retrieves her phone and flips through her recent calls before pressing 'send'. Eliza's warm voice answers on the first ring as though she has been awaiting Kara's call.

"Kara, honey, is everything all right?" she asks, and Kara cringes when she checks her watch and sees how late it is. It must worry her mother when the phone rings this late.

"I'm sorry," she winces, "I wasn't paying attention to the time."

"It's fine," Eliza replies. "As long as you're okay." Kara is practically invulnerable to harm and still her adoptive mother worries for her. She cringes at the realization and thinks that if Eliza gets _this_ worried about Kara, then thoughts of Alex's well-being must keep her up nights. Almost by instinct, Kara's hand drifts down her belly, and she marvels at the mere concept of being a mother and what that might mean. Tossing and turning each night over imaginary scenarios of her child in danger? Could she handle it? Was she strong enough for _that_?

"Honey, are you still there?"

"Still here," she answers, quickly shaking off thoughts that are too premature to be entertained seriously. "I was hoping I could talk to you about something."

"Is it about what we talked about before? Have you—"

"Not yet," she interjects. "It's about the other thing."

"Ah," her mother sighs.

"I asked Mon-El to move in with me," she begins. Kara cringes slightly. She hasn't taken a moment to consider what her mother might think of her recent decision to cohabitate with her boyfriend. "I don't think it has been good for him, living in the DEO. As long as he was there he was never going to make this place his home. Not when he has to live under a curfew and be treated like a threat," she rationalizes, providing reasons that she hopes her mother will be able to find acceptable from a logical standpoint.

"And because you love him," her mother counters, taking Kara by surprise. "Because that's the only reason that matters, honey."

"Yes, of course," Kara replies. As if she could fool her astute mother otherwise! Just as Eliza had understood Mon-El's masked interest in Kara during their Thanksgiving get-together, Eliza had probably comprehended the depth of Kara's feelings long before she had. Confessing her feelings aloud now, for the first time, makes them seem somehow more real and raises the stakes even higher. "But something happened when we got back to the loft tonight. He had a..." Kara grasps for the right word that doesn't make it sound like the man she loves needs a padded cell, before recalling the word she heard Eliza use on multiple occasions when discussing her. "An episode," she says. "He was back there…seeing things."

"First of all…are you okay?" Eliza asks anxiously. "Did he say anything or do anything to hurt you?"

"No," Kara denies. "Of course not."

"Good. People don't know what's happening when they have trauma-induced flashbacks. It's a fugue state, Kara. It's so real, he could lash out to protect himself or say things…not intended for you."

"I'm fine," she assures her mother. "I'm worried about him though."

"Of course you are."

"It's just that…I told him that I could help…that I know what to do. But the truth is, I don't. I remember being where he is but not how it got better. Not really. I just remember you and Alex being there…all the time." Kara's emotions en masse well within her: fear for Mon-El, anxiety over being what he needs, being enough, and gratitude that she has someone to talk to who has walked this path before.

"I knew when we adopted you that, with your history, re-entry would be difficult for you. I talked to specialists and read books about dealing with post-traumatic stress."

"What should I do?" Kara breathes, a lump rising in her throat.

"Don't push him to talk about it," Eliza answers.

"Okay," she says, disappointed. "We'll call that strike one."

"It's okay," her mother reassures her. "Don't push him to talk, but let him know, in no uncertain terms, that you are there to listen if he _does_ want to talk," she advises. "When he opens up…try to avoid making promises like 'it's going to be okay'. Being 'okay' isn't always what people with survivor's guilt want—not right away. They often see the guilt and the reflection as something they deserve for having the audacity to survive. Try to avoid casting judgments on his actions. It's a rare individual who can be their best self when under that kind of duress. Most of us wouldn't hold up under scrutiny in the kind of situation he faced, without warning and without the mental training or acclimation to that kind of stress."

Kara's mind races as she commits her mother's words of advice to memory. "But it sounds like it's my job…to do nothing?"

"Oh that's not true, honey. Do things with him you normally do together. Encourage him to socialize, to be active. Find activities that work for both of you. Building camaraderie can work wonders. Why do you think I always made Alex take you with her when she went to hang out with her friends? Or that time I signed you up for soccer, so you could be part of a team."

"That was a disaster!" Kara exclaimed. "I broke Jenny Sauer's nose, and she had to miss the eighth grade dance."

"That little snot had it coming," Eliza snaps protectively. "After the mean things she said to you, she's lucky _I_ didn't break her nose!"

"Mom!" Kara gawps, shocked by her adoptive mother's uncharacteristic outburst.

"I'm sorry, but that girl brought it on herself," Eliza defensively justifies.

"She was offsides, and it was just trash talk. She didn't mean anything by it."

"A mother doesn't distinguish. The point is, Kara, that you began building a life again, to make attachments here beyond Jeremiah, Alex, and myself. I remember that you started sleeping better after that."

"I remember too," Kara echoes, her mouth lifting in a half smile. There's a moment of silence on the line that lasts long enough for Kara to wonder if the call has dropped.

"It takes a toll, honey," her mother finally says, her tone one of uneasy warning. "You should be aware of what you're getting into. In many ways…leading them out of the dark is just as hard on us as it is on them. But you can't give up," she cautions. "He won't get better overnight—that will never happen—but if you keep being there for him, keep loving him, eventually you'll look up one day and realize he hasn't had a flashback in a while or didn't flinch during the last thunderstorm, and it will _feel_ like it happened overnight. You have to be patient," Eliza added. "And know that there will be setbacks."

"It was so scary," she admits, letting down her guard a little bit more. "It was like he wasn't really here with me. I didn't think I would be able to reach him."

"But you did, and that's what matters. He's been repressing for a long time. You never really did that. For you…there was always the thousand-yard stare—the haunted look in your eyes—right from the start. But when you had episodes you were nearly impossible to reach. I'm afraid I didn't provide enough of a connection for you, enough of a lure to draw you back to reality."

"That's not true," Kara claims, catching the strains of hurt in Eliza's voice and wishing to alleviate it.

"It's all right, Kara," Eliza reassures. "I was under no delusions then. We got there eventually, but we had to survive the worst of the fallout first. Unlike our situation, you have the advantage with Mon-El, honey. He would do anything for you, if you only ask. I have no doubt that includes trying his hardest to get well."

"I just hope that doesn't hurt more than help."

"When you fall in love with someone, Kara, their pains become your pains and their joy, your joy. The joy part is easy," Eliza finishes, leaving Kara to draw her own conclusion about the painful parts of a relationship.

"I'm beginning to see that," Kara acknowledges. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of your advice."

"Anytime, honey. What's a mother for?" she breezes with a chuckle as though happy just to be of help.

"Mom?"

"Yes, Kara?"

"We're still getting there. More and more all the time."

"I love you, Kara," she says softly.

"I love you, too. Talk to you soon." She finishes exchanging her farewells with her mother and ends the call. She plugs her phone into the charger on the back wall of the kitchen counter for the night, then wonders what to do next.

The tea helped to relieve the bitter taste that resided in the back of his mouth from the onset of his vivid waking nightmare. But it did nothing to ease the lingering tension that still plagues his larger muscle groups. His thighs and upper back twitch and tremble in unpredictable intervals. He's anxious to escape the laser-like scrutiny Kara focuses upon him, as though she expects him to shatter to pieces at any moment.

Perhaps he might, and he silently prays to every god he's ever heard of that if it does happen, it won't happen in front of her.

"But _she's_ the one you'll need!" Ral groans, frustrated. "You're going to want her to be there when you break."

Mon-El closes the bathroom door behind him and turns to find Ral sitting on the counter, his legs dangling a foot from the ground. Mon-El opens his mouth to speak and then throws a glance at the door. There's a radio-box on the counter; he's heard Kara listen to the box when she showers sometimes. Mon-El examines the device and finds the power symbol so prevalent on the technical devices of Earth and presses the accompanying button. The radio-box blares to life, playing a song by someone named Ariana that he recognizes from the larger radio-box at the bar. It used to play a lot – back before the attack by Cadmus – on Friday nights when spirits were high and patrons wanted to dance. Mon-El turns the volume up two more notches.

"Yeah, her super hearing won't be able to cut through _that_ ," Ral smirks.

"She doesn't eavesdrop," Mon-El tells Ral…and himself. "Now…why?"

"Why, what?" Ral rejoins. His eyes widen, his eyebrows climbing his forehead, perhaps a little too comically for the tension of the situation.

"You said I'd want her there. Why?" Mon-El demanded through clenched teeth.

Ral shrugs. "I don't know."

"You don't-? I thought..."

"You thought…what? That I know everything? Don't be an idiot; I'm not Bask sitting on the throne of Val-Or. I don't know all, Brother. I know what you know."

"But you said..." Mon-El trails off, his mind trying to weave his conscious mind through the maze created by his subconscious.

"You don't want to go there, my friend. Not yet," Ral warns. "It's best if these things happen on their own timeline. Stick with what you already know."

"Like the waking nightmare?"

"It's really begun now," the hallucination declares, his face growing sadder. Ral shrugs, resigned. "You can avoid sleep if you like. It's up to you. But the memories will come anyway now. A dam has been breached. Let's pray to the gods what comes next is a slow leak and not a flash flood."

"Memories?" Mon-El asks, his brow creasing with confusion. "That's not how it happened."

"Isn't it?" Ral answers cryptically.

"But you put me in the pod," Mon-El reminds his step-brother. "You put me into the pod and then went back for her. To be with her."

"Hmmm," Ral hums, his answer refusing to commit one way or another to Mon-El's assertion. "I did say that, didn't I?"

Mon-El swallows, trying not to choke on the emotion that threatens to overwhelm. "Was there ever a girl?" he asks.

"Maybe," Ral answers. "Probably? But if there was…I never made it back for her."

"Gods," he moans, dropping his chin to his chest as his mind flashes to the memory of Ral's death. He could see it, hear it, and smell it as if he was there, but it is still too unreal to be believed, like a mirage that fades away when he gets too close.

"You won't feel it yet," Ral promises, placing a hand on Mon-El's shoulder as he leans against the counter. "But now you know."

"Why?" Mon-El inquires. "Why have you hidden this truth from me?"

"Because…sometimes truths are meant to be delivered in their own time. When they're _ready_ to be heard and not a moment before."

"Truths?" Mon-El ponders, a sliver of fear lancing his heart.

"A single truth would be so simple, wouldn't it?" Ral answers with a question, his hand gripping at Mon-El's shoulder as if it's tethering him to the same plane of existence. "And you and I both know that life is rarely simple, no matter how much we try to change ourselves to make it so."

"Why can't I just…go on?" Mon-El asks, rubbing his temples. His head hurts, pounding like the clang of metal on metal. "What's wrong with forgetting that day?"

"Because then there will always be a part of you missing. Whether you remember everything or not, even now it's shaping who you are…who you're becoming. As much as you tell yourself that the man who pulled that car from the edge of a bridge exists because of Kara, that's not entirely true. And soon you'll know why. But don't worry about when it will happen. I'll make sure it happens at the right place at the right time. Leave it to me."

Ral vaporizes the second Mon-El blinks – there one second and gone the next. "Great," he sighs, unable to shake off the overwhelming feeling of encroaching doom. It's just him and The Weeknd in the bathroom now.

He's spent too long here without taking the shower he claimed he was after when he excused himself from her stifling scrutiny. Opening the glass door of the shower, he spins the dial for hot water until it will turn no more and waits for steam to fill the chamber while he disrobes. His clothing comes off piece by piece, his body moving like that of a weary old man as though he's aged a century in the last day.

The buzz of the electricity he absorbed in the early hours of this morning, which had sustained him throughout the day, has long since dissipated, perhaps in part due to the waking nightmare…memory, he relived. He feels his body's need to rest pressing in on him with all of the inevitable inescapability of a stasis sleep taken before a deep space jump. He can no longer afford to avoid sleep. If Ral is correct, the memories and visions will come whether he sleeps or not, and he'd rather avoid being in the thick of things when they do. Sleep it is, but first the shower to help him ease the tension wreaking havoc on his body.

Stepping under the spray, Mon-El feels the heat of the water but not the sting. How he misses the sting! The feeling of water beating down on him, hot enough to turn his skin the color of the Daxam sunrise. Breathing the steam deeply into his lungs, he savors the heated exhale of it, feeling more cleansed with each breath. But still the muscles of his back, along his spine and shoulders, twitch in an annoying manner as though he is a rebellious puppet on strings that refuses to dance to its master's tune.

After being shot during his incarceration by Cadmus he'd felt like this, albeit to a lesser extent. His blood had pumped through him so fast, soaked up by his jeans, that it set his heart to racing. For hours after they had made their escape and were returned to the DEO, he'd shivered without feeling cold, teeth chattering while his wounded leg twitching painfully. Adrenaline, the physician had said, explaining that during traumatic experiences the system floods with the chemical, telling the body it's in danger and attempting to provide it with the physiological tools needed to protect itself. Even once safety is reached, the chemical remains in the blood, oftentimes for hours, even days afterwards. It also has the added 'benefit' of searing memories of traumatic events into the mind like a slaver's brand upon the skin, making them easier to recall and in greater, richer detail.

Taking a few minutes, he soaps up one of Kara's fluffy, frilly sponges and hits all the important spots with the suds, until he feels quite overtaken by foam. This isn't the utilitarian all-in-one soap provided in the showers at the DEO, he is certain from its purple hue when in the bottle – so he refrains from lathering his hair. He could take care of that tomorrow. Ready to rinse, Mon-El shifts until the pulsing stream of water beats down upon the top of his scalp, where the dull throb of his headache stubbornly refuses to be shaken loose.

Water easily defeats the delicate bubbles, sending them retreating down the hard exterior of his body and legs until they're circling the drain at his feet. After a moment, he drops his chin to his chest so that the scorching stream of water funnels at the base of his skull and to his neck before planing down his powerfully built back.

Senses still on heightened alert, Mon-El hears the bathroom door click open over the sound of the radio blaring Justin Bieber's 'Let Me Love You', feels the breeze of cooler air entering the room. He keeps perfectly still as she opens the glass door the bare minimum to admit her and slips inside the shower stall. The space wouldn't be enough for the both of them were there any concerns in regards to personal space. Luckily for them, there are not.

"Hey," he says, acknowledging her presence without turning around. Her hands brush against his hips with a feather light touch, an entreaty, before gliding up his back to rest on his shoulders.

"I thought I'd join you," her voice whispers. "You don't mind, do you?" Kara leans into him so close the front of her legs brush against the back of his thighs. Her belly lays flush against the compact muscles of his ass as she places open-mouthed kisses on the tension-riddled path of his spine.

"How could I mind this?" Mon-El pushes away from the wall and presses his back more firmly against hers, wrapping his other arm around until it lands on the back of her thigh. He turns his head to the side until he can almost feel her breath on his cheek.

With her lightest stroke, caressing him is like caressing granite. Even in the face of her loving touch, every part of him is unyielding, and Kara knows that's not because he wants it that way. "You're so tense," she observes.

"I know," he says, disturbed because the hot shower has seemingly had no effect on the state of his body. "I'm sorry. It must be from the..."

"Can I help you?" she asks, tentatively. "Will you let me help you?"

"How?" he sighs, unsure that anything can help at this stage. He wonders if he'll ever be able to relax again or if this apparent state of heightened alert is his new normal.

Taking hold of his wrist, she removes his hand from her thigh and directs it elsewhere. "Place your hands on the wall," she instructs.

"Am I under arrest, officer?" he jokes.

After a delicate snort that brings a smile to his face, she says, "You've been watching too many cop shows."

Mon-El does as she instructs, admittedly a novelty when they're both naked, unsure of what to expect. The feeling of her thumbs digging into his trapezius muscles was nowhere on his list of possibilities – but it should have been at the very top. Her x-ray vision is unable to discern individual muscles, and yet she's able to locate the knots beneath his impenetrable skin with pinpoint accuracy. The pressure she applies would crumple titanium, but instead it's slowly loosening the knots of restrained emotion, to which his muscles seem desperate to cling.

"Gods, Kara," he moans, the dissipation of tension feeling so good and her hands on him feeling even better. In fact, it feels so good he can't keep the words, "Don't stop," from slipping out.

"I won't," she promises. Proving her vow, her thumbs move lower, to his middle back, applying their heavenly pressure to his lats. "Is this helping?" she asks, hopefully. Even without looking, he can practically see her biting down on her lower lip in that way she does when she isn't certain about something.

Mon-El's breath catches as she finds a particularly nasty ball of tension and goes to town on it. "You have no idea," he groans, relishing the pain she provides, as if it's resurrecting him from the stupor he's been in for the last half hour. "Harder," he begs.

"Really?" she clarifies.

"Yes, harder." When she complies, his breathing shifts to a heavy pant, and he bites down on his lower lip with a grimace. He's going to bruise, at least for a few hours, but he doesn't mind in the slightest. She spends a few minutes working her way back up his back to his shoulders before spearing her hands into his hair and massaging his scalp from the top of his head to the junction point at the base of his skull. When her hands glide down his now relaxed back, signaling that she is done, Mon-El declares, "Kara Zor-El, have I told you lately that you are a goddess?"

Peppering his tended back with kisses, Kara slides her hands around his waist and upward until they come to a rest on his chest, over his heart. Mon-El removes one hand from the wall to cover them, lacing their fingers together.

Kara's unoccupied hand drifts down from his chest, past his abdomen until her fingers find the light trail of fur that leads exactly where she wants to go – but doesn't. She caresses his shoulder blade with the tip of her nose and brief brushes of her lips before placing a series of open-mouthed kisses there. "Would you like me to take care of the front now?" she asks, delicately twirling her fingers through the hair on his lower belly.

Her innuendo—her presence—has his body stirring at the speed of light. His cock twitches in anticipation, already at half-staff since shortly after she joined him. "So what are you waiting for?" he inquires, his voice lowering to a rich challenge.

"You know," she replies.

Mon-El reaches for the hand on his lower belly, grasping it as he spins around to face her and places her hand on his shoulder. Grabbing her hips, he tugs her flush against his body and backs her up until she is sandwiched between the hard planes of his body and the cool tiles of the shower. His lips swoop down upon hers, taking, drinking, mining for the taste of her, before she has even a chance to protest. Not that she ever would.

Kara melts into him, her knees losing their will to hold her up. She would slide down the wall into a heap on the tile floor, were his body not trapping her right where she is. With a mind of their own, her hands grip at any part of his shoulders and back she can reach, fingernails searching for purchase as his tongue and lips transfer their focus to the long, sensitive column of her neck. As if he has every right…he takes her breath away.

His hips tilt slowly, torturously against her belly as he lays ruthless siege to her neck, his cock seeking her wet heat but settling for the satiny softness of her skin instead. One of Kara's legs steals around his, her ankle hooking around the back of his calf and traveling up and up until her knee is draped over his hip, opening herself up to him. Heat races through her, lighting a white-hot blaze under her skin, burning through her self-control like a wildfire. This has been her endgame all along when she'd decided to join him in the shower, but she hadn't intended to dissolve into a jellied mass of need and desire quite so soon. She should know better by now. "Mon-El," she gasps, instinctually canting her hips against his, seeking fulfillment.

He knows what brought her here – why she slipped into his shower and interrupted his solitude. She is afraid for him. Fears what might happen if she should leave him alone to his thoughts and ruminations, and he can't say he's not a little bit afraid as well. With some degree of difficulty, he tears his lips from the soft divot of flesh where her chest and neck converge.

He leans his forehead against hers, cupping the back of her head with both hands. "Tell me why you came in here, Kara?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"To distract me?" Mon-El pulls back, seeking eye contact. Kara obliges him by tilting her head further back, slackening her neck so that the weight of her head is cradled completely in his hands.

"You don't have to talk about it," she confirms. "But if you want to, I'm always here to listen. I'm here for you…in any way that you need me. I just wanted to remind you that you're not in this alone." Her own fingers slide up his chest until they frame both sides of his face.

"By offering me your body?" His head tilts to the side, finding this tactic curious.

"By being what you need," she counters. "Aren't you always worried about being what _I_ need? If I'm your mate, shouldn't I do the same, Mon-El?"

He shakes his head slightly. "Kara, I've always wanted to be what you need. It's what I work so hard for…but you should know…I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know what it was like on Krypton, but couples on Daxam didn't have those sorts of relationships. We were latched to people to consolidate power and gain influence – for most, it was a business arrangement and nothing more. When we chose to mate with someone, outside of a latching union, it was usually merely a physical bonding. Neither was based in…based in..."

"Intimacy?"

"Yeah…that."

Kara's forehead gathers together, a deep crinkle appearing between her eyebrows. Part of her wants to place some distance between them, afraid of the answer to the question on the tip of her tongue, but there's nowhere for her to go. "Does it bother you? The intimacy between us?"

"Kara," he sighs. "How can you ask me that? Do I seem dissatisfied to you? I tell you this only to help you understand. My culture compartmentalizes these things. When a man needs the kind of thing you're suggesting, he doesn't go to his latch-mate…he finds someone else…someone willing…to _use_."

A dark shadow crosses her eyes, and they squint into hard ice-like chips of blue. "Well, if you found someone else to _use_ , I would kill you. So that's never going to happen. It may have been that way on Daxam, but on Krypton, and on Earth it's the opposite. Here we promise 'for better or for worse'."

Mon-El's eyes widen. He's seen enough of Earth's entertainment programs to recognize those words and their inherent meaning. They speak of mating and of choosing a more permanent bond with implications of expanding the familial unit, but he's never dared dream that she would bind herself to him in such a way. "Isn't that from the Earth commitment pledge?" The question spills out before he can stop it.

Kara's face freezes. Isn't this what they have been talking about all this time? Choosing and mating? Isn't that where it's all been leading? Doubt floods her, and her eyes dart away from his.

It's not easy to miss the uncertainty filling her eyes, and it occurs to Mon-El that while he hasn't dared to hope for more than what lay between them, her mind has already gone there and planted that seed. He rushes to assuage her doubt in hopes of putting it to rest. "I just never thought you would want that…with me."

"Mon-El!" she chastises, unable to believe the abhorrence laced throughout his words and their tone. Abhorrence for himself. She knows this, the survivor's guilt talking—she's experienced it enough herself to recognize it—but still it hurts her to see it. "Don't ever say that!" she instructs.

"Kara, there are things you don't know about me. There are things _I_ don't know about me. Tonight, I remembered for the first time that my stepbrother died right in front of me."

"Sometimes the mind blocks out what it isn't ready to handle," she explains.

"Yes, but…what else have I forgotten? How can I ask you to pledge yourself to me when there are so many unknowns?"

"I know enough," she insists.

But she doesn't know enough, Mon-El thinks, not by a long shot. How does he tell her that he has regular conversations with a dead man? How does he tell her the truth about who he is, about what his father did to him? How does he tell her the thing about him that made his peculiarity merely tolerated among his people – all but Ral? How can he bear to see the inevitable disgust in her eyes?

He wishes he could forget those things, block them out like the too-horrible-to-be-recalled circumstances of Ral's death. He would gladly trade every last horrific memory of the Fall of Daxam in exchange for forgetting the thing he would cut from himself if he could. "You say that now, but you hated everything about Daxam when we first met. Everything about the kind of life I led back there. You should know…I wasn't just a bystander in that life. I was a blissful participant—blissfully ignorant, maybe—but blissful nonetheless. What if..."

"Would you go back if you could?" she questions, almost an interrogation. His mouth opens and closes in surprise, having not expected that question. "Well…would you?"

He considers carefully the almost intentional aimlessness of the life he had there and the emptiness it fostered inside of him. His duties, the expectations placed upon him that had nothing to do with his desires, as though what he needed meant nothing at all. He is still building a life here, and there are more than a few bricks missing, but with Kara he feels a solid foundation beneath his feet for the first time in his life. But for all of its absent pieces, the blanks waiting to be filled in, he is happier here than he ever could have imagined being on Daxam. Contentment is a feeling for which he has no frame of reference before arriving on Earth and falling for Kara. "No," he declares confidently. "I would never go back to that life. Even if I could. My life is right here," he says, stroking her cheek.

Lifting up she captures his lips with hers, as Mon-El reciprocates with equal fervor; soft lips meeting firm pressure with fiery intent. The forgotten shower water, slowly losing heat throughout their conversation, finally gives up the last dregs of its tepid warmth turning cold against their skin. Not uncomfortable but neither is it conducive to their activities. Blindly, Mon-El reaches behind him, his hand fumbling for the spigot before finally turning it until the water drips to a halt. Reluctantly, Kara drags her contented lips from his, her breath coming in shaky gasp. "Show me," she demands, a hint of challenge in her voice. "Let me be what you need. Tell me what you need."

"Just you," he says. "No games tonight, okay?"

Kara nods in agreement, reading the vulnerability in his eyes. "No games. Just us."

Grabbing the backs of her thighs he lifts her until her legs drape of their own accord around his hips, her ankles locking together as her arms encircle his neck. Mon-El pushes open the shower door with his foot, lips and tongue tasting hers as he maneuvers them from the crowded room and to the bed.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes:

BUCKLE UP FOLKS!.

If you would like to know who to thank for this upping of my smut game, you can thank the Anti who left me a hate comment on my last story telling me that I was going to hell and that I needed to "atone for my sins" for "hating woman". To this Anti: If you thought I had "out-grossed" Fifty Shades of Gray before… ** _you ain't seen nothing yet_**. Just so you know…"This was all for you, Damien. All for you!" Enjoy. And know that there's so much more where this came from. I take your hate as encouragement.

Dedicated to my fam member mon-kai-el and the dirty bitches squad (aka The Dark Side) whose dirty talk showed me that I could take the kid-gloves off. Stay thirsty, my friend.

If you're not into this, skip towards the end and pick up after the sex.

· PSA: If there are any Babysubs out there who read this and think, 'this is me' and you don't know what to do. It's important that you know this: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU! Not a damn thing, and don't ever let anyone tell you differently. Especially the faux-feminist posers who don't have a clue what feminism is all about, or what owning your power _really_ means.

 _Y_ _ou are not the single type_

 _So baby, this the perfect time_

 _I'm just trying to get you high_

 _And faded off this touch_

 _You don't need a lonely night_

 _So baby, I can make it right_

 _You just got to let me try_

 _To give you what you want_

 _-The Weeknd – "I Feel it Coming"_

Chapter 4/8

Kara laughs as he crosses the room with one hand on her thigh, the other wrapped tightly around her body, her legs locked around his waist. Both of their bodies are slick with water. "We should dry off first," she comments, a hint of protest in her voice. Craning her neck to glance at the bed behind her, her lips form into a pout, "We'll get the sheets wet."

"Don't care," Mon-El replies, as he tosses her on the bed. Leaning over, he shakes his head like a wet dog, sending water droplets spinning in all directions, many of them landing squarely on Kara. She holds up her hands to ward off the spray, but laughs maniacally, belying her flimsy attempt at lodging a complaint. "Too late to worry about it now," he grins, his smile a hybrid of incredulous happiness and evil glee. Surreptitiously, while she wipes at the droplet of water on her face, he withdraws a condom from the bedside table and tosses it on the bed within easy reach.

Her laughter, and the abandon with which she wields it, entrances him. Only an hour ago his entire world was falling apart, and now he can feel her laughter, her beauty, and her openness knitting it back together, like sutures applied to an open wound. As her laughter begins to fade, Mon-El feel its deficit like a gaping hole opening up inside of him. Unwilling to play party to her laughter's demise, he does the only thing he can think of on such short notice. So, despite the rather urgent state of his arousal, Mon-El curls his fingers slightly and goes on the attack.

His fingers digging relentlessly into her ribs, have the astonishing effect not unlike that of detonating a bomb – with a devastating yield of shrieking giggles. A large portion of her brain shuts off instantly, becoming a slave to instinct only, while the tiniest sliver of it, the part no longer in control, speaks of logic and caution – its pleas largely unheeded. Her back bows against the bed, logic and caution wondering why she's laughing, but instinct scrambling to get away from the assault and find a way to gain the upper hand.

Her legs kick out, instinct seeking connection, while logic and caution prays she finds none. Despite her vigorous laughter, it's inexplicably unpleasant, this feeling of being tickled; his fingers finding the most sensitive parts of her dermis and exploiting them ruthlessly, and yet uncontrollable laughter is its outcome. Reason cannot reconcile it.

Truthfully, Mon-El didn't expect her reaction to be quite so bombastic, but it made sense in a way. She's been so responsive to his touch in every other way they've experimented, why not this one? His laughter joins hers as he relishes the sound of it, the ultimately fruitless attempts she makes to escape, her gasps for air between peals of giggles, and the way her body contorts beneath the relatively innocuous pressure of his fingers. She no longer controls her body, any more than when she's in the throes of an orgasm.

He wants to taste her while her laughter rings in the air. One hand continues tickling her while the other travels downward, fingers toying with her navel before gliding down to the nest of silken hair between her legs. Dipping into the seam there, he finds her already wet, a smile of undeniable satisfaction spreading across his face. Mon-El adds a second fingertip to the first, widening them to spread her open before him.

It's too much to withstand, the tickling (though lessened now) and then his fingers stoking an even more primitive blaze within her. It's as if he's crossed all the wires in her brain; reason no longer computes and now instinct feels like higher thought. "Oh!" she cries, but it's not a word with any real meaning, just a syllable, a sound expressed only out of necessity. A sound riding a burst of air right out of her lungs, like it was the last bus out of town.

Suddenly it stops, the sensory overload, and there's no time for her to catch her breath before his mouth is on her, the tip of his tongue dipping into her warm honey, overwhelming her with new sensations. Mon-El places his palms on her inner thighs, stroking her gently, seductively with his thumbs before spreading her further apart. When his mouth finds her clit, alternately sucking and licking at, electricity shoots through her, causing her temperature to rise, her nipples to tighten painfully and her clutch to beg for the solid heaven of his thick cock.

Her tongue snakes out to wet her dry lips, before they press tightly together, the edges around them turning white. "Mmmmm," she moans when his lips begin suckling her swollen bundle of nerve endings, building her need to a frenzy with each seductive draw. Kara sits up, struggling to her elbows, watching his head move between her thighs. Sensing her observance, Mon-El opens his eyes and tilts them up to meet her rapt gaze. He has her in his thrall (or maybe it's the other way around), so he doubles down on his efforts.

The power of the sensations streaking through her body, lighting her skin on fire, turning her nerve endings into stinging nettles and melting her insides to lava, has her losing control over the muscles that hold her head aloft. Her neck succumbs and her head falls back, leaving her staring at the ceiling through a half-lidded slit of vision. "Mon-El," she moans, sighs. She isn't sure how it sounds or even how it is intended, only that she wants more and hopes he understands.

With one last draw, Mon-El withdraws his mouth, causing Kara to lodge a non-verbal protest in the form of an entitled huff of frustration. He chuckles, a little too self-satisfied for her liking, but transfers his mouth to the satiny sensitive skin of her inner thigh. He kisses the skin there like it is the answer to his prayers, moving all around, from one side to the other, from near the juncture of her knee all the way down to the musculature that strings her thigh to her pelvis. Cruelly, he studiously avoids returning to her weeping, begging core.

Kara spears a hand through his hair, hoping to subtly steer him to her center-most point. He tosses her a steely glance, well aware of what she's doing, and she reconsiders her tactic. Carding her fingers through his hair, she strokes him, massaging his scalp but not directing him. Only rewarding him for the care he shows her by returning it in the only way she is currently capable.

But she's so needy— _in_ _need_ —for him, her desire pulled taut like a bowstring preparing to let loose an arrow, that despite her best efforts she can't stop herself from begging. "Please," she whimpers.

Lifting his mouth completely from her (not even remotely her aim), a slow, drowsy grin crosses his face, the dimples in his cheeks deepening. "I love it when you make that sound," he slurs, as though drunk on her plea, and her taste. Perhaps to prove it, or perhaps to reward her, he puts his mouth on her as last, fully committing to providing her pleasure. His lips mesh with hers, his tongue slipping into her soaking slit determined to discover and conquer every vulnerable nerve ending. He uses every available means to tease and cajole sighs of pleasure from her; his lips and his tongue, even angling down to tease her with the tip of his nose.

"Ahhh," she pants, unable to contain the tension that steadily builds within her. "Mmmmm." Her breasts are heavy, aching for his touch, but since his hands are otherwise occupied at the moment, she offers her own instead. In part because the ache is intolerable and requires relief, even if it is less satisfying, and in part because she knows he likes to see her touch herself like this.

She cups her breasts in each hand, squeezing the nipples, already flush with arousal, until the sensations she evokes ride the thin line between pleasure, and the erotic pain she's learning new ways to appreciate. With a mewling cry, Kara surrenders to the overload of stimuli; the clenching, burning need he elicits from between her legs, and the sting of frozen needles her own hands can't seem to alleviate.

She's so wet for him and he wants to make her even wetter. He wants to hear her scream like never before, and fall apart like she can never be put together exactly the same way again. Forgoing the simple orgasm he had planned on driving her towards, Mon-El abandons her clit and looks up. The view from this position is better and more wondrous than hovering over the rainbow lakes of Havania.

Mon-El rests his head on her inner thigh and waits for the abatement of orgasmic tension he worked so hard to build and watching, appreciatively, as she pinches and tugs her nipples to granite peaks. Kara heaves a long sigh as the orgasm she chases slips irretrievably out of reach, and Mon-El knows that she's ready to hear him.

"Trust me?" he asks.

"Mmm-hmmm," she nods, gazing at him beneath heavy lids, entranced by the way her juices on his face catch the light. She's learned in the relatively short time they've been together, that when he withholds from her it's because he wants something more for her—something better. He's never left her unsatisfied, and she suspects by the gleam in his eye he's not about to start now.

Mon-El's lips brush against her labia, kissing them with the same practiced technique he employs on her lips. Vacillating between gentle, frustratingly chaste pecks to calculatedly incendiary kisses, his wet tongue stoking the fire rather than dousing it. Like a finely aged Thoronthian Ambrosia, her flavor is a perfectly balanced mixture of sweet and salty, with the barest hint of the coconut oil she slathers on her skin during her morning ritual. It seems her arms and legs aren't the only places she massages the fragrant and flavorful oil.

"Really trust me," he qualifies, whispering against her inflamed skin. He teases her slit with the tip of one finger, before sliding down to her opening and pressing into her core up to the second knuckle. "It will take more trust than you've bestowed before," Mon-El warns.

"I thought…you said…no games," she gasps at the promising feel of his forefinger sinking into her heat. Her fingers clench at the duvet cover beneath her.

"No games, sunshine," he vows, adding a second finger to the first and testing her tightness by gingerly plunging in and out. She grows wetter around his fingers, her body answering the call for more lubrication while her hips gyrate sensuously in time to his torturous rhythm. "Just pleasure."

"Okay," she nods frantically, ready—willing—for anything he wants to give her. As long as he would just give it to her already. Her body has sprouted a fine, glistening sheen of sweat, dampening her tingling hairline, her chest between her breasts, down to her fluttering belly.

"You might want to grab ahold of something and hang on tight," he suggests, allowing her the choice. He scissors the two fingers inside of her, just to provide a new sensation, as his thumb brushes her clit like an afterthought, with no real intent to explore its possibilities further.

Without taking a moment to wonder why, Kara reaches up, behind her head, to grabs onto the edge of mattress but is unable to find any real purchase. "Grab onto what?" she asks.

"Okay," he answers, placing a last kiss on her folds and withdrawing his fingers. "You're right. Preparation is key." Sitting up on his knees, he backs up until he's standing next to the bed, palming the waiting condom before he begins tearing the comforter from the bed. Forced by his actions to move, Kara scrambles to the head of the bed. When the duvet and the top sheet are on the floor, he grabs the pillows. Mon-El sends them to join the rest of the linens with a flick of his wrists, leaving only the fitted sheet and a square foil packet on the mattress. In responds to the confused expression on Kara's face, he smirks and says, cryptically, "You'll thank me later."

With a slight bow, made all the more ridiculous by the sight of his rather insistently jutting cock, he instructs her to re-assume her previous position. Kara complies, while he does the same, climbing back onto the mattress and positioning himself between her long legs. Barely time to reach up under the solid headboard to grasp its base before he's laying siege to her mound once more, stealing her breath with long, graceful fingers. The base of the headboard, usually hidden by a sea of pillows, is bolted into the bedframe and should, therefore, provide some decent leverage.

Mon-El grins, an interesting thought occurring to him. Something to file away for later. "We should borrow a set of Nth metal shackles and cuffs from the DEO. For later," he qualifies, his eyes gleaming as he imagines a whirlwind of scenarios.

"Mmm-hmmm," she nods, barely hearing a word he says. His fingers move within her greater purpose now, and her hips follow their every move. "What are you…going…to do?" she inquires, biting immediately down on her bottom lip as a streak of electricity sears through her.

"Show you what a supernova feels like," is the only answer he supplies. Questing fingers delve deeper, all the way down to top knuckles as his fingertips search for a rough jewel in the heart of her slick, polished clutch. He watches her face for the change he knows will come when—

"Rao!" she gasps, gulping for air, her hands gripping tightly to the headboard.

There it is. He smiles, practically salivating like a predator facing a succulent meal he knows he will have the distinct gratification of earning. His need to pleasure her consumes him, and he consumes it like nourishment far more self-sustaining than the air he breathes, or the yellow-sun radiation that makes him extraordinary. Mon-El strokes the hidden jewel of her passage with the pads of his fore and second fingers, curling them back towards him a few times, watching as her breathing intensifies.

She feels her clutch grow wetter with each maddening stroke of his fingers, her own pleasure magnifying until it mirrors pain, sending bursts of white hot shudders from her core, first causing her toes to curl. A rush of blood then fills the vessels beneath her areolae, causing the dark pink circles of skin to pucker tightly, profoundly, the tender tissues there becoming further enflamed with unquenchable need. Her fingers clench uncontrollably and the upholstered headboard emits a threatening creak. Kara bites down on her lip, attempting to hold in the riot of sensation he meticulously builds within her, but that doesn't stop the groan that rips through her as she tosses her head from side to side on the mattress.

Pleased to see pleasure overtaking her, coursing through her body like a raging wild fire, Mon-El grins and licks his bottom lip. He's nowhere near done with her yet. Having brought her clutch to the peak of sensitivity, he sets about taking advantage of that, using every method in which he was trained. He had only ever done this twice before, during his training in the pleasure arts, and only with a training artist. He had never attempted this with one of his innumerable partners back then; he had never cared enough to put in the effort, or stall his own pleasure long enough to see it through.

But now he could give a squat about his own pleasure, if it means watching her writhe beneath his touch and listening to her fight the urge to give in to a full throated scream. When he is finished, she will no longer have the self-control to hold back. Rather than instructing her to let loose, Mon-El accepts the challenge of bringing her to the breaking point.

He bears upward onto the hidden gem with greater force, alternating his technique; tapping, pulling, swiping as well as pressing upwards until he can hear her struggle for breath. He retreats and plunges back in repeatedly, increasing the speed until he's hand-fucking her mercilessly, fingertips strumming her as though she is the instrument and he, the master musician. The music she makes, a combination of tenacious groans, pained whimpers, and breathless panting, offers a masterpiece of sensuality and carnal nirvana.

He's driving her toward something new and terrifying and, despite her uncertainty, her hips oblige his efforts by rising to meet his tireless hand. Her stranglehold on control is slipping with each plunge and retreat of his fingers, and Kara feels her internal temperature skyrocket until she's certain that she will combust into open flames at any moment. Kara slams her eyes shut, petrified that her body will use her eyes as a release valve in an attempt to normalize the unprecedented heat and pressure building within her. But despite the attempt to maintain, her control slips another notch.

"I can't," she whimpers, attempting to bring her knees together in a less than full-throated attempt to stop what's happening inside her. But his body is in her way and the best she can do is clasp at his hips. What is he doing to her? Pressure builds to an unparalleled peak, and not just in the usual places.

"You can," he insists. Using his free hand, Mon-El grasps for one knee, holding it down against the mattress, while adjusting his body position to pin her other leg down with his own knee, spreading her wide, his toiling hand not skipping a beat. "You can," he promises. "You just have to let go."

"It's…too much," she sobs, drowning in a room full of air.

"Trust me," he whispers. His hand is covered in her honey, as he relishes the obscenely wet noises her body plays for him as he works her. He can't wait to taste her, to lick his fingers clean like he's just brazenly gorged his way through a Daxamite banquet table.

When it happens, she understands what he meant when he said he was going to show her how a supernova feels. She _is_ the supernova. Everything inside and outside of her contracts and seizes, like freezing a moment in time, before exploding outward. If she didn't know any better she would believe that her skin had flown right off of her body, like a blanket of atomically charged particles.

As her clutch clamps ruthlessly down on him, his hand doesn't stop moving, in fact it speeds up, applying the pressure to her secret jewel even harder than before. "Gods of Val-Or," he groans, overwhelmed by the stunning sight of her flushed skin, and her lithe, perfect body quivering with release. "You are so beautiful. Give me everything you have, my love."

It's too much. Too much to feel all at once. Too much sensation for her mind to process. His relentless siege, too much for her meager fortifications to withstand. There is no air left in her lungs for screaming, and yet her body attempts it anyway. Her neck bows back and her mouth opens, a sound that's both groan and sob issuing forth as her grip on the headboard splits the thing in two pieces and tears it from the frame. Her eyes glow red beneath their closed lids, tendrils of heat spreading outward like tributaries radiating from their source.

Finally, as his hand pistons, Kara's body repays his efforts with interest, a gush of nectar jetting from her, splashing onto his cock and belly. Her clear and odorless ejaculate bathes him like an aspergillum of holy water, and Mon-El feels suddenly as though he's been blessed and cleansed by her, by her God, filling him with a sense of sexual peace he's never before experienced. Withdrawing his hand, he swipes at her clit coaxing another, equally powerful stream from her, soaking him again, as well as the sheet beneath her.

Stars. Into the stars, far beyond the sun and the moon, and rocketing into the deep black void of dark space – that is where Mon-El sends her with his devotions. The release sweeps everything away, short-circuiting her brain until it becomes overloaded with the need to process sensation – complex thought now a long-lost memory too deep within her fried brain to recall. He leaves behind nothing but the minimum of involuntary autonomic responses for her; a heart that still beats (races) and lungs that yet breathe (pant), but little else. Except the pleasure. There's more of that than she ever knew could possibly exist, and Kara floats weightless upon it, with no desire to drift back down to earth.

Watching her insensate body swim in the pleasure of the most staggering orgasm she's ever experienced, Mon-El keeps the promise he made to himself just a few moments earlier. Licking the nectar of his goddess from each finger deliberately and with great relish, he takes a few moments to savor her unique flavor – a flavor perfectly suited to his tastes.

After removing the last of her cream from his hand, Mon-El caresses her body, soothing her tremors to quiet stillness. Bending over her, he takes turns sucking each of her nipples into his mouth, soothing the ache he couldn't before. Switching back and forth he pays them and her beauty reverent homage. Her teeth chatter uncontrollably from her release, puffs of chilled breath hitting the air around her mouth. Following only the demands of her purely carnal state, Kara presses upwards into his mouth as he suckles her breast while using a hand to tug on the nipple of the other.

When it's safe to open her eyes again, and she gains control of her freezing breath, Kara's eyelids lift a fraction. Just enough to see him admiring her, to see his belly and chest and cock, glistening with her release, which he makes no effort to clean. Kara hadn't known her body could do that. In truth, she'd thought female ejaculation was a myth that girls whispered about, but never actually experienced for themselves. But Mon-El knew better.

She feels changed, somehow, and realizes that she always feels that way after being with him. Making love with Mon-El is a transformative experience for her each and every time. "Where…where did you learn…to do that?" she asks, her teeth still clacking periodically together.

Mon-El's brow knits together. He doesn't like to think about that time, or any time before her, really. He doesn't wish to be reminded of his training in the pleasure arts by court instructors. They had been severe and exacting teachers when it came to technique and mechanics, but mentioned nothing of the connection that can happen when the heart joins the game. He hadn't known it then, but his pleasure had been shallow and empty, clinical and repetitious. His life then had been little more than assisted masturbation, especially when compared with the unexpected fulfillment that came when sharing the art with Kara.

"I told you," he replies, stroking the outside of her thigh. "I spent years under the tutelage of royal court instructors of the pleasure arts. For which I will be eternally grateful…if for no other reason than it has given me the means to bring you to such heights. Are you alright?" he asks, his forehead wrinkling with concern.

"Uh-hmmm," she nods, her pink tongue snaking out to moisten her dry lips. "I made a mess of you."

"Do you hear me complaining?" he chuckles. "And I assure you…it won't be the last time you shower me," Mon-El vows, his smile transforming into a delicious leer. Were it not for the remaining rosy tint of her orgasm-flush, Kara's skin would, no doubt, be prettily blushing for him. He loves her sweet blush, since shame is never the cause of it, but rather desire.

"But what about you? You haven't come yet," she points out. "This was supposed to be about you—about what _you_ need, baby," she says, a hint of resigned complaint in her tone. "But all you've done is pleasure me."

"That _is_ what I need," he counters. "That is _always_ what I need. Seeing you fly apart at my touch is all the balm my soul requires."

But still she needs to feel him moving inside of her, to make him a part of her as mates should be. Turning her head, she spies the condom at the edge of the mattress and rescues it before it can fall off the edge, catching it between two fingertips. Before she can hand it to him, Mon-El's hand covers hers and slides the condom from her tenuous grasp. She chews on the fingernail of her forefinger as she watches him tear open the package and slowly roll the condom into place, her entire body vibrating with anticipation.

Holding the base of his cock, he repeatedly slides the shaft up and down over her tender, pink folds causing her to hiss, her clit and labia raw and enflamed. "Does that feel good, sunshine?" he teases. Leaning down he flicks her taut nipple with the tip of his tongue, swirling around and around the dark pink puckered tissue of her areola, before sucking it all into the warm cavern of his mouth.

"Yes," she shrieks, encouraging. "That feels good. It all feels so good."

He tilts his hips against her soft, wet patch just to tweak her a bit, but he manages to tweak himself as well. His cock, throbbing with need and as hard as stone screams to be heard, but Mon-El is not quite ready to oblige. An obscenely wet, but supremely satisfying, popping sound accompanies the act of his mouth uncoupling from her breast. "Do you want me inside you?" he asks.

"Yes," she begs, her hands gripping at the hair on his head, refusing to allow him to move away. "Yes!"

It hits him then, like a meteor slamming into the planet's crust, that this intimacy they share will _never_ be simple. Their attraction—the games they play to dig deeper into each other—will never be…vanilla. So an encounter where their true natures are denied would be entirely hollow, not unlike all his encounters before her. And if there's anything he knows, it's that he doesn't want what he has with Kara to remind him of his past. "Do you need it?" he presses.

Kara nods frantically, loving how he pushes her to participate; how he won't allow her to simply be passive in their lovemaking. "Yes," she nods frantically. "I need it. I need you to stick your cock in me—"

"Daddy," he interrupts, instructing her. It's a risk, he knows; but it's what he wants, and he knows deep down, she wants it too. They had a word for this dynamic on Daxam— _Dexaris_ —and through his cultural research he discovered, to his delight, that it was not uncommon here on Earth. The dynamic itself is already very real between them, it lacks only the correct terminology to make it official.

Her eyes widen with surprise. She was an innocent before he took her virginity, but she wasn't _that_ innocent. Kara always did her research in advance of making big decisions, especially when they might veer in the direction of her heart. Her readings had delved into the some of the tamer underbellies of the BDSM lifestyle, and she can confess she'd felt some intrigue while reading up on leather restraints (too breakable), piercings (impossible), and jewelry chains (drool). She could certainly now see the draw to the Dominant/submissive lifestyle, but she'd be the first to admit that she closed the book when it began educating her about _these_ types of roleplays. She did not want to know that there were people who did… _that_ , and had even tried to scrub the thoughts away with mental bleach. Like videos of kittens on the internet.

But that was then, and this is now. Kara understands now that it's not meant to be some barely veiled allusion to a secret desire to commit incest. It is instead, a metaphor, for sexual caretaking. He's telling her that, by being her 'daddy', he's committed to caring for her in every way possible, no matter her need. And as his 'princess' she will do the same for him when called upon, and she will do so without question.

Kara feels a rush of even more nectar between her legs. It is everything she wants—has wanted—Kara realizes. As if she's been waiting, on the edge of a razor, to make him her daddy since the moment she first felt the hot slide of his skin against hers. It thrills her in places she once would never have dared talk about. She spends every moment of her life, out there, maintaining an ironclad control on her powers and on her choices, but here with him, she can completely let go of all of that. Rao gave her exactly what she needed when he brought Mon-El to her.

"I need you to stick your cock in me, Daddy," she gulps nervously, this time adding the moniker.

His hips compress involuntarily, the very sound of her capitulation, and the subtle, sweet shift in the tone of her voice, sending his cock nearly to the breaking point. "There's my good girl," he groans with approval, sighing with relief. She could have been disgusted by the idea but, once again, she surprises him at every turn, stirring him without end. "Tell me what you want. I want to hear the words, see your pretty pink mouth say them, Princess."

Kara smiles at his term of endearment. "I want you to fuck me until you come, Daddy," she tells him, the word shockingly easy to say, and so…right. "I love it when go all stiff and growl at the end."

"Do you?" he smiles, lining up his cock with her wet and waiting folds, teasing her with just the tip. She'd never mentioned it before, and he loves that she's sharing this special piece of knowledge with him, opening up to him in every way possible without provocation. Intimacy freely given has the sweetest taste of all.

"I love it," she says. "It makes me feel…." Her voice trails off.

"How does it make you feel, Princess?" He presses the just the head of his steel against her clit, circling it around and around. He wants to keep the conversation going just a little while longer and isn't sure he'll be able to while he's fucking her.

Kara's teeth clamp down on her lower lip in response to his torturous teasing of her clit with the head of his penis. Her clutch instinctively cramps as though calling out for its other half, the only thing that can make it whole. "It makes me feel…like…like…unnghh, Daddy please," she fusses beautifully and so much to his liking. She slides her hands further down his body, to his waist, hoping to pull him inside of her. "There's nothing in the whole world…but you and me…when you come." Her hips rise in response to his tease, but he holds back from her.

"Just you and me, Princess? You like it when the world falls away?"

"Uh-huh," she nods.

"Will you have me now?" he inquires, per his usual protocol. Mon-El already knows her answer, has utter faith in the answer, but asks anyway. It's important that in her desire to please him she doesn't lose herself and her own pleasure in the process. He values his goddess not just for the powerful body that submits to his, but for the strong mind that knows her own will. Were her mind weak or easily manipulated, he could not savor her submission with quite the same relish. "Will you take me inside of your hot clutch? Say it for me."

"Yes," she replies. "I'm so lonely without your giant cock inside of me. Push it in deep where I'm aching, Daddy."

"Whatever my princess wants," he rewards her honesty by pushing into her until he bottoms out.

Kara loves the way his eyes drift close and a tranquil peace takes over his face whenever he first enters her, like he's finally been relieved of a chronic and persistent pain. Her fingernails dig into his skin in response to the sudden but very welcome feeling of fullness his cock provides. Unrepentantly, she scores his back with stinging marks that will heal all too soon for his liking.

Mon-El withdraws at once, rocking back into her gently, and then again in an attempt to turn her expression of bliss to one of eager urgency. On reflex, her knees rise to grasp at his powerful flanks as he props himself above her, one hand resting on the bed beside her head, the other holding her hip, tilting it to meet his thrusts.

"Yes!" she whines, but rather than complaint, he hears only exultation. Kara's hands roam freely, caressing his cheeks, his neck and down his chest, until heading back up to settle on his shoulders. Mon-El responds to the primal sound of her urging by answering the call, dragging slowly out of her by half and sliding back in with a sigh and an answering groan of his own. He finds a steady tempo of half-thrusts that meet his needs but promises to extend her pleasure as well.

He fills her so completely that each and every time they come to this place again, she's discovers she's forgotten how good he feels, how perfectly matched their bodies are. Among Kryptonians an ancient tale is told: that eons ago, Rao gathered all of the stardust of the galaxy and created each couple as a single creature. Then, one at a time, He struck them apart and scattered them to the cosmos. As time passed, Rao took pleasure in watching and waiting for the perfect time, at last, to bring the stardust together again.

With everything she has, Kara believes that Rao played an instrumental role in bringing Mon-El to her and she wonders if He's looking down upon them now, well-pleased by his efforts. Her hands slide down Mon-El's chest to his stomach and around his hips until she cups his ass, caressing the hard globes with gentle fingers, as though they could convey the words her mouth seems not quite ready to divulge. "You're my stardust," tumbles uninvited from her mouth in a cracking, panting voice upon another of his thrusts. _I love you. You make me whole._

Mon-El smiles, recognizing the reference. On Daxam they were familiar with the Kryptonian fairytale of the matching stardust. At length, they would laugh about it, snickering at the notion that a One True all-powerful God would care enough about such lowly beings as to handcraft a mate for each one of them, like a matched set of silver crowns. Why wait for your silver crown when you could wear any of the jewels of your choosing? _That_ was the Daxam way.

But it didn't seem so funny anymore, the idea of being tied to a person beyond words or even a shared predestination, but down to one's atoms, the nuclei – the peta-quarks of their very existence. Sinking down to his forearms, her whole body cradling his, he takes her mouth with his. She opens for him, taking his tongue into her mouth as she took his cock inside her welcoming heat. The kiss is a leisurely and a thorough display of jubilation, their tongues sliding languorously as though getting to know one another again after a long separation. When he retreats, as always more affected by their kisses than he expects to be, her mouth chases after him. She gasps when Mon-El bites at her lower lip, before sucking it between his lips to sooth its tenderness. Then he groans against her still-questing mouth, the thrust of his hips between her thighs still slow and measured. "Everything feels right when I'm inside of you," he says against her open mouth, before claiming it once more.

He can forget everything when her hot clutch is drawing him inside, demanding, insistent, and undeniable—undefiable—like sunrise or the morning rise of his need for her. He can keep this steady pace indefinitely perhaps, driving her up to edge of fulfillment without ever allowing her to fall. And it feels like bliss, her wet heat clutching at him when he tries to withdraw, like a frantic child gripping the leg of a departing parent.

Mon-El buries his face in her neck, consecrating it with hot open-mouthed kisses, nipping with his teeth before sucking on the tender flesh there until blood rises to just beneath the surface. Kara turns her head to the side to give him better access, opening herself to him as much as possible as he fucks her slowly, sensually. The muscles of his ass seize and release, seize and release over and over, his thrusts bringing her closer and closer to completion. Deliberately. Incrementally.

They dance this dance until their skin grows slick with perspiration, their lubricated bodies sliding easily against one another. With each plunge of his pelvis, his pubic bone bears down on her clit, not enough to drive her over the edge, but enough to have her emitting a high-pitched keen that's music to his ears.

But more than the sweet sounds of her pleasure he wants to hear her voice, loves how raspy it gets when she's nearing her peak. "Is that good, baby?" he asks. "Do you like it when I fuck you like this?"

"Mmmm,…yes, Daddy," she replies, her teeth chattering slightly.

A tension he can no longer place on the back burner sparks in the lower part of his spine, wrapping around to settle in his balls with painful insistence. But he knows that this is where control is paramount, because the longer he denies his climax, the more intense it will be. To Kara's frustrated disappointment, Mon-El slips out of her heat and sits up on his haunches.

"Did I do something wrong?" she asks, her brow crinkling in confusion. "Are you mad?"

"No, baby. You're much too good to make me mad." Grasping his cock lightly between his fingers, he taps the bulbous head against her swollen clit. Her hips gyrate in response to the continuing stimuli, but still her body cries to have him back inside of her. She will happily go without though, if he has other means in mind to provide her pleasure, especially if it results in his own.

His praise exhilarates her, as does the rapid tattoo of his heavy steel slapping against the sensitive bundle of nerves at the apex of her folds. "Are you going to come in my mouth?" she perks up, her disappointment giving way to hope.

Mon-El considers her suggestion and then shakes his head. "I've already claimed you like that once today." Fondly, he recalls shooting his load on her belly during their illicit—and extremely eye-opening—sexual encounter at her place of employment this afternoon.

"Claim me again, Daddy," she pleads.

"Kara Zor-El," he sighs, his heart breaking with the fullness of it, "there is no act of heroism or selflessness I could have ever committed to be worthy of you. Not in a thousand life times."

For a moment, the game stops, her 'good girl' façade slipping until she's there with him in the bubble of intimacy. "Rao has been very good to _both_ of us," she replies. "I believed I would never have anything like this. I didn't even know what I needed…until you showed me."

"And what is it that you need?"

"Someone I can trust completely with all that I am," she replies. "Even the parts I don't know about yet."

"Trust is only one of the many things that bonds us together," he tells her. He says it like a vow, and she can't help but feel he wants to say more but holds back. Kara's breath catches a little, in a way that has nothing to do with the electrical impulses that are running riot throughout her body, but especially below her belly-button.

This isn't the moment to tell her he loves her, while she's utterly compliant and he's holding his hard cock in his hand. Mon-El can be occasionally obtuse about the protocol involved in how emotions are shared on this planet, but he knows that confessing love for the first time during sex would come off as disingenuous at best, and emotionally manipulative at worst. So for now…trust would have to suffice

Soon though, he would have to work up the courage to bare his soul to her, and pray to Rao and all the gods of Val-Or that she feels the same. Or at least, is willing to allow him to remain her mate. Mon-El takes her hand and kisses her wrist at the pulse-point before making his way down her arm, nipping at the soft skin on the inside of her elbow. "How do you like it best?" he wonders, signaling a return to the game.

"I told you," she answered, gasping at feel of his lips and hot breath on her elbow. Who knew she was so sensitive there? "I love it when you go stiff—"

"No, I mean…how do _you_ like it best?"

"There isn't a way I _don't_ like it. But if I had to choose…I like it when you go deep, so deep it's like you're trying to smash our atoms together. And I like it best when you go hard and fast, harder and faster than any human can go – hard like a battering ram. I like it when you show me I'm yours and make me feel it, Daddy."

Mon-El hooks his elbows under her knees and hoists her legs up until her calves are propped against his shoulders. He leans forward until her ass lifts off the mattress, opening her even further to him. With one hand, his guides his shaft into position and wastes no time ramming into her. Her entire body stiffens in response to his invasion, her hands reaching around her thighs grappling for any part of him she can touch as her hips rise to meet his thrust. "You want it all?" he taunts, withdrawing and waiting at the rim of her entrance with just his tip inside. Her clutch ripples, clasping its muscles around something that's no longer there.

"Uuungghh, yes!" she frets, on the verge of boiling over. "I want it all. Give it to me, please? Pretty please, Daddy?"

"How could I deny such a sweet request?" He capitulates to her wishes slamming home until he feels like he might disappear inside of her. Dragging slowly out of her, her body fighting his retreat with all it has, he pushes back in over and over again, using his own body weight to propel his forward motion. Harder and faster, her voice begs, so he obliges by speeding his thrusts outside the realm of human capabilities. With one hand he reaches for the ruined headboard, hoping to find some leverage.

"Yes!" Kara's cries are like worship, a voice praising his godliness, or at least that's how it makes him feel. "Just like that, Daddy," she whimpers, unable to quite catch her breath. "Fuck me so hard."

He can feel the flutters of her inner walls begin, so he scrambles to alter her position. Sitting up on his knees, Mon-El places his hands on the backs of her thighs he pushes them forward until they're pressed against her breasts. "Hold your legs apart," he demands, never breaking eye contact he uses 'the voice' that makes her impossibly wetter, "and don't let go." Kara complies by slipping her hands into the crooks of her knees to hold her legs. Spreading them wider, she lifts her head to watch his dewy cock disappear inside of her as he returns to pounding her.

Hands now free, he fists one in her hair, roughly drawing her head up so that he can capture her open mouth with his. Their heavy breath mixes as tongues tangle far more lazily than expected given the superhuman pace and power of his thrusts. Gripping her hair to hold her body in place as he fucks her, his other hand reaches for the rickety headboard, using the leverage he gains to adjust his hips to a steeper angle of entry, striking the upper wall of her passage in just the right way.

"Rao!" she sobs, the muscles and tendons of her neck distending from the struggle of racing toward her oncoming climax. She gasps for air as the electric shocks streaking through her give rise to a lump in her throat and sudden onset of inexplicable emotion. Unbidden, tears slide down her temples into her hair. His cock ruthlessly and repeatedly strikes the spot his fingers had earlier primed to such great success.

Her neck arches, the onslaught of sensation in her clutch so acute and so excruciating her body would attempt escape, were it capable of anything more complicated than feeling his rigid length fucking her into the mattress right now. Her nerve endings may be sending mixed signals, but her mouth knows exactly the message to send. "Don't stop," she wails, everything below her belly button priming to explode like a coil wound to the springing point. "It's all tight, Daddy."

At this signal, he pummels harder at her signal, recognizing that she's just a few pumps away from getting him all wet again. "Are you ready?"

"I'm going to come," she gasps out. Her skin is red, a fine sheen of perspiration giving her a glow that reflects the light, her breasts bouncing in time to his tempo. He can see the pulse racing beneath her skin as though it's attempting to beat its way out of her.

Drawn by the visible pulse, Mon-El slides his hand from her hair, past her cheek to her corded neck and settles his hand around it. Her eyes widen slightly and a look passes between them, a non-verbal communication that consists of a plea for trust, answered with a blink of acceptance. Surprising and delighting him once again, Kara's head relaxes back, allowing him his way.

He deliberately places his thumb over the beating carotid artery and slowly adds pressure to his fingers as his thumb bears down. Though her air intake is somewhat restricted, that is not his overall objective by using the choking maneuver. By depressing her artery and temporarily decreasing the flow of blood to her brain, he impels a sense of lightheadedness that will give way to full-blown euphoria if he chokes her long enough. In the hands of a neophyte, the untrained, or the well-meaning but overly enthusiastic, this technique of inciting pleasure can be dangerous, or even fatal. But Mon-El knows exactly where to press and how, and he knows the signs of distress for which to be on the lookout. Not that the life of Supergirl could be in danger from anything _he_ could do to her.

She need only place a hand on his wrist to make it stop. She does not.

It takes only a moment for the world to go white and fuzzy around the edges, bright pinpricks of light floating behind the screen of her sight, her vision turning to something like a movie dream sequence. But she cares for none of it, because all she can process right now is the way her clutch tries to maintain a death grip on his retreating cock. The agonizing tightness in the deepest pit of her lower belly is one permissive word from drinking him in, like her womb is a desert and his seed is the only glass of water for thousands of miles.

"Are you going to make a mess for me again, Princess?" his voice sounds like it's coming through a tunnel. Kara focuses on it, listening for the words her body needs to hear.

Despite his hand pressing on her neck, she croaks, "Yes, Daddy."

"That's what I like to hear," he acknowledges, each word accompanied with a grunt of effort. The room is an erotic symphony of panting breaths, sensual whines, feral grunts, and the bawdy sound of skin slapping relentlessly against skin.

"Please, Daddy?" she begs, sobbing. She's swimming in the tension of pleasure unfulfilled, on the precipice of coming to fruition but for want of his indulgence.

His fingers tighten around her neck, compressing her artery further until her eyes roll back slightly and finally he can release her, in every way. "Give it to me, baby," he demands. "Give me everything you've got."

It's the spark she needs to incite the impending explosion. Not anything like falling over a cliff, instead it's like riding a burning rocket past the stratosphere into an unknown abyss. She goes supernova again, her clutch convulsing uncontrollably as she squirts a gush of fluid that soaks his belly and shaft, as well as the sheet beneath her. For a second, as though the comms to her extremities have shorted out, she loses the full feeling in her legs turning them into a cushion for pins and needles.

Gods, he can't take it! The crush of her heat around his cock, the grasping, clutching paradise of it, is more than he can bear. More than he wants to. The dense and unrelenting pressure amassed in his balls screams for release and Mon-El obliges. He pushes that pressure into her, sharing it with her, joining her in bliss with three short but powerful strokes, each one bringing him another plunge closer to the gods. With each release of his seed, as her muscles ripple around him, he is certain that his own death is just one thrust away. She will drain the life from him and he will have no complaints on the matter. With the last of it, his body goes stiff as a board, while behind closed lids, his sight goes white and gray. He feels the rumble in his chest before he hears it—that sound she waits for—a deep, barbaric growl that falls somewhere between the roar of an un-muffled motorcycle and the sultry purr of a contented tiger.

For him, the climax is over in a matter of seconds and he collapses atop her, forcing her legs to flop uselessly on the bed like a ragdoll's. For Kara, the orgasm continues, her clutch still convulsing and rippling around softening steel, her entire body shuddering as electrical impulses besiege her central nervous system at random intervals, like mini-lightning strikes. As though unaware that he is done, her hips unwittingly continue to cant upward into his, still tamed by a cock that is no longer thrusting.

Kara's hands grapple at the wide expanse of his muscular back which is no longer stiff, but now malleable to her kittenish clasping as her fingertips dig in deep. Mon-El purrs mindlessly at the feel of her fingernails scoring his skin. When she opens her eyes, her vision is fuzzy and golden, and an all over warmth suffuses her entire body. Sensation beyond tingly waves hasn't yet returned to her legs, as though there's a disconnection of some kind at the base of her spine. Yet, she feels like she's caught a glimpse into the core of Rao's Light.

"I think I died," she muses, her voice barely above a whisper. "Am I dead?"

"If you are…then we went together," he answers, his voice like a slow, drunken slur. "If my fate is to spend eternity in your arms, I'll try not to complain…much."

Smirking, Kara summons the strength to pop him on the side of his artistically toned ass. How he can joke while still recovering from a mind-shattering orgasm is something she will never understand. But…somehow…she loves him for it.

"If we were dead, I could stay right here," Mon-El laments, lifting his head from the crook of her neck and sipping at her supple, responsive lips. "Buried inside you…where I belong."

Sensing his withdrawal even before he moves, she pulls a disappointed face and tightens her grip on his waist. "I hate this part," she whines, on the cusp of bursting into tears.

Holding onto the condom, he drags himself away from the warm haven of her, his legs still quivering from his exertion. "I know, sunshine," he says, caressing her naked flank as he slides to the edge of the bed. "I don't like it any more than you do. I would prefer there be nothing between us when we make love."

He disappears into the bathroom to dispose of the condom and returns a few moments later with a warm washcloth and a glass of water. He hands her the water to rehydrate and she sits up just enough to comply as he wipes her down, first the mess he transferred to her belly, and then lower down. Sipping her water, Kara opens her thighs for him again to provide the access he needs to bathe her.

When she hands the glass back to him, he sets it on the bedside table and turns back to her. "The sheets need to be changed," he declares, noting the large wet spot between her thighs. His own body shielded the sheets from much her ejaculate, but she still left a sizable reminder that will make sleeping there uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry," she blushes, averting her eyes.

Mon-El grabs her jaw and lifts her face until their eyes meet. "Don't ever be sorry for taking your pleasure, in _whatever_ manner suits you. It is yours and you deserve every bit of it. No shame, remember?"

"No shame," she agrees. Her expression changes in a microsecond from embarrassment to sultry self-satisfaction.

"Good girl," he smiles, rewarding her with a sultry kiss. "Now let's get this sheet off the bed. I don't know about you…but I could use some sleep," he confesses. He's gone without for so long he feels like he could sleep for a week or more.

He tears the wet sheet from the bed, along with the mattress pad and carries them to the washer, while she places the top sheet on the bed along with the comforter. She'll make the bed with a new set of sheets in the morning. For now, this will be enough, especially if he's holding her. "Good thinking…stripping the bed," she says, as she climbs back into the bed.

"Told you you'd thank me," he winks, tossing the pillows on top of the bed. Mon-El climbs in next to her and she rolls right into arms, molding her body against his side like it was always meant to be there. He tugs her even closer and snakes both arms around her, using one to cup the back of her head while the other strokes up and down the hourglass curve from her ribs to her hips.

Snuggling her head into his chest, she wonders, "Do you really think you'll be able to fall asleep?"

"Well…someone wore me out," he shrugs, "so I have every reason to hope."

"I hope so too," she says, her fingers toying with the patch of hair in the center of his chest. Tangling one of her legs with his, she giggles, turning her face into his chest.

"What is it?" he asks, already halfway to laughing simply from the potent contagion of her giggle.

"One of these days we might actually wear pajamas to bed."

"Not too soon, I hope," he replies. "I prefer having you naked and ready for me at any given moment. If I had my way…you wouldn't wear a stitch of clothing while you're in this apartment."

The thought intrigues and excites her, and maybe even arouses her a little. "I'd just be naked…all the time?"

He considers the thought, imagining it in his head as a lazy lopsided smile forms on his lips. "Yeah," he sighs.

"And what would you do if I was…say…writing a story, naked?"

"Well, I might watch," he answers. "Intently."

"Just watch?"

"I supposed there's a chance I might tell you to bend over and put your forehead on the counter."

"Then?"

"By then you'd be ready, because I'd be using the voice that makes you wet."

Kara gasps.

"You thought I didn't know?" he chuckles. "Adorable. Anyway…you'd be ready so I'd take out my cock and—"

"Wait a minute!" she interrupts. "You're not naked too?"

"No! Where's the fun in that?"

Kara scoffs and pouts a little, but she doesn't pull away from him.

"Trust me, baby, you're going to feel so much sexier if I have to take my clothes off to get to you. You want me to have to put in the effort."

Kara considers this notion and is surprised to realize it's a logic she can't refute.

"The power of your body—not your super powers—but your shape, your form, the glow of your skin, your pretty blush, the blue of your eyes—is all the power you need over me," he confesses. "When we're together you can say no—you can always say no—but you don't and that's more intoxicating than the finest Zakarian ale. Ask for the heart that beats in my chest and I will tear it out for you with my bare hands, Kara."

A silence falls over the room and Mon-El knows that in his sex-stoked stupor he's perhaps revealed too much of his heart. Offering to remove is heart at her word? That wasn't at all metaphorically apt, was it? And she just let it hang there unanswered or commented upon. Kara breathes deeply and opens her mouth to speak, while Mon-El holds his breath.

"We're going to need some curtains."

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5/8

 _We're burning out, we're burning down_

 _We're the ashes on the ground_

 _We're burning out, we're burning down_

 _We've fallen underground_

 _The light has fallen from the stars_

 _Now we are sinking through the night_

 _Out of sight we've fallen underground_

 _Pick up the pieces left of us_

 _-Greta Svabo Bech – "Circles"_

Mon-El stares at the ceiling while her breathing settles into a steady, hypnotic rhythm. "We damaged the bed," he says, referring the headboard.

"Just the headboard. The frame is pretty sturdy," she hums, without opening her eyes. She listens to his heart beating inside his chest – the heart he vowed to remove if she asked it of him. How serious was he about that? Of course, she knows he was speaking metaphorically but…how serious was he, really? Was he saying what she thinks he was – _hopes_ he was?

Unlike men of Earth, who prefer to fall asleep after sex (or so she's been given to understand), Mon-El gets chatty. She's always suspected it's because he has trouble sleeping, but she's beginning to wonder if that's not just not part of his personality. In many ways, Mon-El's always seemed like a bit of an odd duck when compared to other men of her acquaintance. Kara supposes that may have been part of the attraction.

"I don't like it either," he says, apropos of nothing.

"Don't like what?"

"Pulling out of you," he replies, as though it should have been obvious. "On Daxam we didn't use such crude devices to prevent accidental pregnancies. Both men and women received an injection every few years for such things. Although I suppose an injection wouldn't be an option for…either of us."

"Hmmm," she hums. "There are injections and even implants for human women. Eliza thinks the best option for me would be the birth control pill. A woman takes it every day to regulate her cycle."

"Well, if that's true and you can just take a pill, why aren't you?"

Here lay a subject she's been studiously avoiding since that night in the DEO gym when they had been so caught up in their need for each other that they forgot to use protection. Kara doesn't know if it's the fact that she's tired of carrying this burden alone, or if the post-coital oxytocin still coursing through her brain lowers her defenses enough to cause her to slip. Or maybe it's because a big part of her doesn't see it as a burden anymore. "I can't take the pill right now," she says.

"Why not? I don't understand. If you want this and I want this—"

"Because I might be pregnant," she blurts.

Oh. _Oh_! Of course this isn't news to him. Thanks to Ral's not so subtle reminder in the form of an unopened box of condoms, it hadn't taken Mon-El long to realize that their encounter in the gym, while incredible and memorable, had not been protected. He had said nothing to Kara, not wishing to cause any distress to their newborn relationship, but instead waited for her to come to him. Instead, he had vowed to make sure she needed no more reason to worry on that front. Mon-El suspects her reasons for not telling him her concerns were similar to his own.

She often has her reasons for doing what she does, and Mon-El made the choice to trust those reasons, even if he couldn't be certain what they were.

Kara cringes a little at his silence, though she can practically hear the cogs cranking in that brain of his. He's probably already formulating a plan of some kind. Whether or not this plan involves leaving her alone to raise a child with undetermined special needs, is a thought that has occurred to her with alarming regularity in the last few days.

"I can't start taking the pill until I know for sure," she explains, to fill the silence more than anything else.

"Until _we_ know for sure," he corrects.

Kara releases a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "We?"

"What's that quaint little phrase? It takes two to Tango? Now, I don't know what this 'Tango' is…but I've gathered that the idiom is meant to acknowledge a situation two people create together. And if my recollection is correct—and I have no memory lapses when it comes to being with you—I was equally responsible for what happened in the gym. So… _we_ ," he declares. "And I want to apologize."

"Apologize?" she asks, lifting her head from his chest, the crinkle rising between her eyebrows.

"I should have been more aware," he explains. "I should have been considerate of your long-term needs and not just our mutual desire for orgasm in the moment. I was a lousy caretaker," Mon-El admits, clearly upset with himself. "But I promise to be better in the future."

"You are not lousy," she defends. "Not at any of it! You said so yourself…on Daxam you didn't have condoms. Expecting you to be thinking of protection at the time might have been asking a little too much for someone new to this culture. I should have been the one to keep level head."

"Well, if you'd been able to do that…then I really _would_ have earned the title of lousy caretaker. Every time I touch you my mission is to take that levelness right off your head."

Kara giggles, turning her face into his chest. "You're really good at that."

"You're not so bad yourself," he replies. "Which leads us right back to this situation we find ourselves in. How long…do you think…until we know?" Despite the speed with which their relationship has progressed, he hasn't yet had the time necessary to acclimatize himself to her female cycle. He suspects it may come soon though.

"Five days," she answers, confidently.

"Five days," he echoes. "That's…specific."

"I've always been like clockwork," she explains, a blush rises unbidden to her cheeks, "sometimes down to the time of day."

"Okay. I'm going to make a suggestion, sunshine."

"What's that?"

"Let's spend the next five days _not_ worrying about it. What's done is done," he justifies. "Let's wait until we know for sure before we go crazy. Because I suspect if we find out we _are_ having a child, worry will become a natural state…for the rest of our lives. So let's spend the next five days just being us. Together."

"But isn't that a little bit like not thinking about pink elephants?" she suggests.

Mon-El's forehead crinkles and his eyes narrow. "Lost in translation," he chuckles. "I understand all the words but I can't make sense of them."

Kara laughs. "It's an object lesson about how the mind works," she explains, lifting her head to look him in the eyes. "I tell you, 'No matter what you do… _don't_ think of pink elephants.' So, what's the only thing you _can_ think about?"

"Pink elephants," he surrenders.

"Exactly."

"Hey, are pink elephants a thing? Because I would really like—"

"Nope."

"Damn. That sounded really cool."

"Sorry."

"Well, what if I said, 'Whatever you do, don't think about naked, sweaty sex'? Would that help?"

"Very sneaky," she rolls her eyes, but can't deny the inherent genius he often displays but underutilizes. "And maybe a tad self-serving."

"Self-serving?" he asks, sounding mock-horrified. "Is _that_ what you think of me?"

"Maybe at first," she admits softly.

"Not exactly the kind of guy you'd want to sire your children," he says, a trace of sad realization in his voice.

"I don't think that anymore," she jumps in to reassure him. "Not anymore." She hates it when he speaks that way. It's all rolled in there somehow; this belief that he's not good enough for her, unworthy of her, as if she's perfect. Kara knows she's anything but perfect. Of course there are times when, as Supergirl, she has to convey unwavering confidence, which can come off as its own version of self-importance. But deep down she knows that she—Kara—is just as flawed as anyone else. "I can't imagine anyone better," she says, placing a kiss over his heart. But his entirely too self-deprecating words repeat in her head like an echo bouncing back until she realizes something. " _Children_?"

"Yeah," he chuckles nervously. "Our little pink elephant is going to need a sibling. At least one," he insists. "Siblings make the tough times easier."

"Yes," she nods, thinking of Alex and the strong leadership she's provided her whenever she needed it most. "Yes, they do. So…at least one then?" A lump rises in Kara's throat and she swallows it down, unable to believe they are actually having this conversation.

"At _least_ ," he confirms.

"You're not…scared?" she asks. Kara wonders how this is possible, because she's terrified out of her mind, despite having had the time to accept and even welcome the possibility.

"Oh, don't be fooled, I'm petrified!" he replies. "I mean…the way I understand it is that parenting on Earth is very…hands on. Daxam wasn't exactly an excellent model for this. I would have no idea what I'm doing. Just to prepare you." Mon-El tilts his head to look down at her, his hand cupping her cheek, his thumb stroking it just above the rise of her cheekbone. "But I swear that I would never stop trying."

"I know," she whispers, before gracing him with a lingering kiss on his lips. Pulling away, she has a difficult time opening her eyes and keeping them open.

Mon-El chuckles, placing another kiss at her hairline. "Get some sleep, sunshine. We'll talk about this again in five days."

She snuggles back into the warmth of his chest, her ear directly over his beating heart. "And you'll still be here in the morning," she mumbles.

"Where else would I be?" he asks, not expecting an answer as he hears her breath even out. Kara isn't much for tossing and turning, she finds her comfortable spot, closes her eyes and is out like a light.

Had they really just planned a family? He imagines it in his mind's eyes because….how could he not? Imagines himself being the loving father he never had. A father that doesn't look at his child and see only an extension of himself and his own selfish desires. He imagines encouraging his child to follow their heart and find their own path. He imagines all the things his child could do and be, born without unrealistic expectations already hanging over their head.

After a few moments of staring at the ceiling, picturing the four children they would have (it seems a nice round number), listening to the hypnotic rhythm of her breath whistling in and out, Mon-El feels the need for sleep hijack his thoughts. His vision flashes white and gray, blurring from exhaustion. He blinks it away before deciding to give up the fight and just fall asleep.

His body melts in the mattress and darkness closes in all around him.

More shades of violet, plum, and indigo blue fill the garden than he remembers from the last time he was here, and the grass beneath his feet is a rich brown, the color of freshly baked gingerbread. Where once there was overgrown and neglected brambles, the palace gardens now stand lusher than the recollections of his youthful memories. The red sun above his head shines to the full extent of its dim spectrum, darker than the yellow sun to which he's grown accustomed, and there's not a cloud in the sky to warn of impending weather. It's the perfect day on Daxam.

Last night's garden party broke up only hours ago just after the morning meal was served, and palace servants rush about cleaning up the mess and setting things back to rights. A mostly pointless endeavor, since another soiree will begin at sundown. At some point during the night, a stone statue must have been tipped over by the revelers and is now littered with detritus as well as what looks like someone's outer dress. Mon-El wonders if there's a scantily clad woman wandering around the palace somewhere. It wouldn't be the first time.

He hears a laugh he recognizes instantly, his heart racing as he turns to find its source. It's a testament to the heart-stopping artistry of her smile that it's the first thing he sees when he looks at her, instead of the protruding belly heavy with child. A child he _knows_ is his. She wears a flowing gown of mint green that sets off the stunning blue of her eyes; and she leans slightly to one side to offset the weight of the heavy basket she carries. She's so beautiful his heart expands at the sight of her.

"What are you doing?" he rushes forward to relieve her of the burdensome basket she lugs with her.

"Don't tell me you've forgotten, husband," she jibes gently, gladly surrendering her cargo.

Husband? "Forgotten what?" he asks, smiling down at her, hoping she'll call him 'husband' again.

"Our picnic," she replies, her brow crinkling in the way that makes his wish to soothe it. "You promised. In our special place? What did you think the basket was for?" she laughs.

"Of course," he answers, playing along. "Our mid-day meal. In our special place. But you shouldn't be carrying this," he scolds, holding up the basket. "There are plenty of servants to help you with such tasks, Kara. Did you even ask?" He sets the basket down at his feet, as though in protest to her ostensibly reckless actions.

"You know I didn't," she rolls her eyes, quite unlike the princess she is. She places a hand on her belly, caressing the bump lovingly. "Besides, the weight of the basket helps me keep my balance. And I'm not one for idleness."

He knows it very well. She's always been active and athletic. It's one of her personality traits that made him fall more deeply in love with her. But after a year, she struggles still with adjusting to her transplantation to Daxam, and even though her head is here with him, he can't help but feel that her heart longs for Krypton and its more regimented ways. Kara doesn't trust the people around her, the servants assigned to assist in her duties. She's frequently confessed to him in their bedchamber that she suspects the servants gossip about her behind her back.

And why wouldn't they? She is the first woman to undergo a natural pregnancy in more than seven generations, a novelty that captures the attention and imagination of all who look upon her. No one could possibly miss the way her hair shines and her skin glows, even more now than before. She is a vision. But that doesn't answer why so many of her personal items inexplicably go missing.

"Your father's illness keeps you so busy," she interrupts his musings with a little pout. Not enough to be gauche, but just enough to brush up against endearing. "You have to eat, after all," she reminds him, her eyes suggesting more in store for him than a simple meal.

"That I do," he agrees, conspiratorially.

"Oh!" she cries out, dropping his hands to clasp at her belly.

"What is it, Kara?" he asks, the hair on his arms and at the back of his neck rising as alarm races through his veins. "Is something wrong? Is it the baby?" Mon-El's blindsided by the onslaught of fear he experiences at the mere suggestion that harm could come to either her or their child. It's a dark thing, so tangible he can taste it in the back of his throat, his fingers itching to tear its throat out.

She gasps before a wide grin splits her face, which she turns up to him. If there had been clouds in the sky, they would have parted to pay homage to her smile. "Our son is strong, my love, and wants to greet the world." Kara takes his hand in hers and guides it to the top of her budging belly. A tiny foot slides along the underside of her skin, so close to the surface Mon-El can practically count the child's toes. His heart swells with love, as though it triples in size to contain the vastness of emotion he carries for them both – his family. "We may be meeting him sooner than we think," she worries, her eyes filled with a strange mixture of anticipation and terror. "Our little Kryptamite."

"Daxatonian," he counters, as if echoing a good-natured argument of old. The burst of fear he felt a moment before drains away, but the dregs of it still leave him a quivering mess on the inside, barely able to mirror her smile.

"Kryptamite sounds better."

Mon-El can't help but pout a little, because she's right. It does sound better. "Fine," he relents, with a mock-scoff. As if he's ever been capable of denying her anything her heart desires. It's been thus from the moment he laid eyes on her. "Kryptamite."

She rewards him by attempting to lift on her tiptoes to kiss his lips, but she loses her balance in the process, tumbling into his steadying arms instead. She finds his arms a perfectly suitable place and chooses to remain there, her laughter still ringing in the air. "I'm larger than a vexlar beast and can barely walk a straight line these days."

"You could be ten times the size of a vexlar and you would still be the most beautiful woman in the system. The universe, by Rao!" he declares. Too late, he remembers that his recent religious conversion is a closely guarded secret, known only to those in his inner circle. He glances quickly about to see if anyone overheard his profession.

"I'm sure no one heard, husband," she assures him. "But I don't see the need for shame. Your belief in Rao is a blessed thing. When we die we will find eternity together…in Rao's Light."

"Shame and prudence are not the same things, my heart." As he holds her blossomed body to his, lazily stroking her back, he can feel their active child moving beneath their layers of skin and clothing. It's the closest he will come to understanding what it's like for her to carry their child. "The proper time and circumstances are required for my profession of faith. We must be calculated and deliberate about it. We can't risk people finding out accidentally," he explains.

"So we…keep it a secret," she concludes.

"Until our son is safely delivered and the line of succession, through me, is secure. Should something happen, and my brother become king, all hope would be lost. There are those that would see my conversion only as your undue influence, especially with the state of my father's health. It could paint me as weak in their eyes and vulnerable to attack. And no doubt the Trinitarians will have their tantrums."

She tucks her crinkling forehead into the heat of his neck, her favorite place, and snuggles as close to him as her swollen belly will allow. "I don't wish to judge the religious choices of others—people should follow where their heart leads—but the Trinitarians seem…unhinged."

Sensing her apprehension, he takes steps to soothe her. Placing a kiss on her forehead, he tightens his arms around her before drawing her back so that he look into her eyes, his hands caressing her arms. "The Trinitarians are rabble rousers and nothing more. They're harmless, but they can make a lot of noise which gives them power. Please don't worry. The stress isn't good for our little Kryptamite," he gives her a placating smile, and hopes that will put her concerns to rest.

"They're more dangerous than you give them credit for, husband. Their blind devotion gives them permission to take actions they might not otherwise take—despite direct contradiction from religious texts. And the Trinitarians have little enough text as it is! This is what happens when people feel as though they have no say in the making of their own lives—they put their faith in an inappropriate context—expecting it to do for them what their government can't…or won't."

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes and heave beleaguered sigh, he says, "We've talked about this, my heart. I understand your concerns and I hear you, but these things don't happen overnight. The wheels of government, and change, move at a slog's pace. We must build support from within, make incremental inroads on behalf of change. Then…perhaps…in the distant future, we will leave this world in our son's hands, knowing that we have laid the groundwork for a better life for all Daxamites."

"I like the idea of our son leading Daxam into a new era of peace and equality."

"Maybe even reunification," he suggests.

"Do you really think so?" she asks, excitedly, her eyes sparkling like gems.

"I have my hopes too," he confesses.

Kara cups her arms around her swollen belly, placing her hands near the bottom of the bulge, where the baby's head is now located. "He has such a glorious life ahead of him. May Rao's Light bless him."

"May Rao's Light bless him," he echoes the expected reply. "Though some might say that he's already blessed, having a mother who loves him so deeply before he even greets the sun."

"And a father," she adds.

"Yes…and a father, as well."

"Liege," a deep voice interrupts, stealing Mon-El's attention from his beautiful wife.

Mon-El turns his head to find Kallas Max, the head of Planetary Security Forces, looming behind him. The man is well over six feet tall with a muscular breadth that makes crossing thresholds a particular challenge, even in the palace, where the doors are generous in width. Like most Daxamites, Max is a product of genetic engineering, though Mon-El thinks him perhaps a bit _too_ engineered on the physical side. His personality though belies his physical presence, as Mon-El has always found the giant to be thoughtful and considerate of others.

Kallas shifts his eyes to Kara as a matter of protocol and nods his head slightly. "Princess," he acknowledges stiffly.

"Good afternoon, Kallas," she returns.

Mon-El shares a pointed glance and nods to Kallas before bending over to retrieve the picnic basket and taking Kara's arm to lead her a few yards away, towards the entrance to the hedge maze cut from plum-hued boscage. Woven throughout the thicket runs a reedy vine bearing clusters of mustard yellow blossoms in full bloom at this time of the season.

"Kallas Max looks serious today," she comments as he leads her away. She's always felt uncomfortable around the man, an instinct she's never quite been able to shake, though her husband would trust him with his life.

"I'm sure it's nothing," he fibs. "I promise I won't be too long. Why don't you go on ahead, and pour me a glass of wine. I'll only be a few moments behind you."

Gripping his jacket with both hands, she tugs him down, capturing his mouth with a kiss. "I'll have more for you than a glass of wine," she promises, the pupils of her shiny blue eyes dilating.

Struck suddenly by all that has blessed him, Mon-El cups her face, stroking her cheek with his thumb, gazing into her eyes. "I love you," he says, his tone bearing no trace of artifice.

"And I love you," he replies, with equal authenticity.

He relinquishes the basket to her, which she takes with one hand, resuming her strange stance of leaning to one side to offset its weight. "Are you going to be okay?" he chuckles.

"I'm stronger than I look," she replies. "Don't be long," she whispers before turning and attempting to saunter away, even though her gait is closer to that of a waddling pegarin. He can't help but smile as she totters down the row, basket in hand, disappearing to the right at the first T-junction.

Turning back to Kallas, Mon-El notices for the first time that Kallas is alone, a rare occurrence, as he's usually shadowed by his loyal lieutenant, the slighter and quieter, Seflan Mos. It is often joked about the palace that Seflan Mos refuses to take a piss without Max's permission. "You must be handicapped without your right arm," Mon-El jokes in greeting.

"Indeed. He is on other business at the moment." Kallas wastes no more time on pleasantries, swiping at his Q-bit, the clear crystal screen that's never far from his reach, and gets down to business. "There's been a skirmish in the Revlan Nebula, Liege."

Mon-El sighs, disheartened. This isn't the kind of news he'd wanted to hear today. His marriage to Kara a year ago helped bring an end to the greater conflict between Krypton and Daxam, but these smaller clashes continue unabated, much to his dismay. "Casualties?"

"Two Daxamite fighters, and…."

"And?"

"A Kryptonian transport. All souls lost."

"That's not a skirmish, Kallus, that's a slaughter." Mon-El's heart sinks into his gut while his blood boils at the same time. "Civilians?" he probes, the muscles ticking violently as his jaw clenches.

"Yes, Liege."

"A transport full of civilians would hardly be looking to start a fight, now would they?"

"That would be a reasonable assumption, Liege."

"Do we know who started it?" he asks.

"General Braal informs me that according to flight recorder data…the Kryptonian transport requested safe passage to beyond the Nebula. According to the captain the transport was headed for the planet Lierra. A Daxam fighter opened fire without responding or providing a warning."

A breach of the rules of engagement during wartime, let alone an armistice.

"And who was the pilot?" Mon-El grills. The giant suddenly views the information scrolling across his Q-bit as a fascinating mystery to unravel. "Kallas…who was the pilot?"

"Commandant Ras Brecka."

"Grife! Brecka? Tell me you jest!" Ras Brecka is a war hero by anyone's measure. Popular among his superiors and revered by those under his command. As a lieutenant, he planned and led a suicide run against a Kryptonian munitions supply line and miraculously managed to return alive, mission accomplished, with all but one of his squad. There stands a statue in his honor right in this very garden!

"I'm sorry to deliver this news to you, Liege. What are your orders?"

Mon-El paces back and forth in front of Kallas, his mind reeling. "He has broken the rules of engagement."

"Undoubtedly, Liege."

"Is he in custody?"

"He's being quartered by Braal. As a courtesy," Kallas replies, indicating that Brecka is not yet being treated as a criminal, but merely a material witness.

"What does he have to say for himself?"

"That he was doing his job."

"Protecting the system from Kryptonian families on a beach vacation?" Mon-El snarls.

"As you say," Kallas diplomatically agrees. "How would you have Braal proceed, Liege?"

Mon-El breathes deeply. This was the part he hates about being the prince—having to make serious decisions when the populace prefers their lives coated with sweet lamec nectar. But though he knows the decision will be unpopular, he makes it anyway. "Make an example of him," Mon-El answers, grimly, the weight of governing sitting heavy upon him. "Show him the same mercy he gave the Kryptonian civilians."

Kallas's jaw ticks but he straightens his spine, squares his shoulders, and nods an assent. "As you will, Liege." He makes a few selections on the Q-bit and then bows slightly.

But Mon-El has one last thought to add. "Kallas?"

"Yes, Liege?" Max replies, readying his screen to issue new orders.

"Have his statue destroyed as well."

A moment of silence. "Yes, Liege."

"Publicly. Make a spectacle of it."

"It will be as you say." Kallas taps Mon-El's commands into a flat clear tablet, hardly thicker than a sheet of parchment.

"Keep me informed."

"Of course. Your seal, Liege?" Kallas reminds him, holding out the tablet.

Still new at this, Mon-El starts, his hand reaching to touch his chest. Since his father's health declined he was given the Royal Seal to affirm all decisions made in his capacity as Regent. He still needs reminding from time to time. Reaching under his shirt he tugs free the chain with the flat, blue crystal attached.

Mon-El swipes the crystal over the top right corner of the screen until it beeps, and with that, Kallas nods and stalks away without a backwards glance.

Mon-El slips the chain back around his neck, tucks the delicate crystal back into his shirt, and continues his pacing. He considers the necessity of telling Kara of this latest development, but fears that learning of the skirmish and the pure vitriol behind it could send her into early labor. Her pregnancy is as high risk as any medical condition can be, since no physician alive has ever delivered a child from anything other than a birthing matrix, a process undoubtedly less complicated than delivering from living being. The Physician Eminent has been studying centuries-old data archives, to learn as much as she can before Kara's labor begins. It would be best for all concerned if the Eminent's time were not cut any shorter than absolutely necessary.

But Brecka's punishment will be swift and public and there's no way Mon-El can hide that from her. He has no choice but to confess, but he knows the delivery of the news will require a deft touch. But perhaps it can wait until after their mid-day repast.

Decision made, he enters the maze anticipating a quiet and intimate meal with his wife. They've had so little time together of late, his father's declining health requiring that Mon-El spend more of his time on governing then honeymooning. Every moment alone with his wife is one he cherishes. Two rights and a left through the plum and mustard yellow hedge maze leads him to a clearing that branches off in four different directions, including the one from whence he came. A stone bench stands before three heroic statues, each more arrogant looking than the last, striking poses as though waiting for him to take a seat so as to admire them at leisure. But that's not what captures his attention.

In the center of the clearing lay the overturned picnic basket, fallen to ground, its contents spilled all about. The base of one of the stone statues is drenched in wine, shards of black-bottle glass strewn on the ground beneath the stain. Recognizing instantly the evidence of a dire situation, Mon-El's heart races at the speed of light.

"Kara!" he shouts. His eyes cast about for any clue of the direction she might have gone but finds done. How could this have happened? Did she fall? Did she become disoriented? All he knows, senses, is that she's in danger and he has to find her. Choosing a path, he runs with all due speed, shouting her name and listening for a response. "Kara! Where are you?"

His call is answered with a scream, providing him with direction, but too distant to determine location. "Kara, I'm coming," he shouts, the pitch of his voice sliding into panic mode.

He shouldn't have sent her on ahead, his mind races, faster even than his feet. He should have had her wait for him outside of the hedge maze, where he could see her. "Please…Rao who blesses us, let her be safe," he prays under his breath, even though he already knows, can feel it in his gut that he may already be too late.

Her scream grows closer, until he's able to determine her location as that of another clearing, the one with copper-blossoms and a naked statue of the goddess Lure.

"Please…don't," her voice begs, her own panic only feeding his. Mon-El hears the sound of flesh hitting flesh and recognizes it as the thud of repeated punching. He unsheathes the knife he wears on his belt for ceremony and imagines plunging it into the heart of the man who would harm his wife. He's so close to her but so far, separated by an eight-foot tall hedge row, but with no way through, and the knife in hand is a useless tool in the face of the shrubbery. He must find his way around to the clearing's entrance, using his memory while in a state of increasing panic.

"You poison his mind with your heretical ways." The voice is familiar somehow, though he can't place it. "It has been decided that you must die. You, and that abomination in your belly. It's only fitting that you die in the presence of Lure."

"Please don't hurt my—"

The strangled scream that follows tears at his soul, his whole world shrinking down to a pinpoint, as all sound but her terror and the heaving breath in his lungs become all that his mind can process. Ages later, after detouring three lefts and two right, he barges into the clearing entrance, tackling his wife's assailant before he can make for the exit on the opposite side of the glade.

Mon-El loses the grip on his knife in the confrontation, but it doesn't belay his momentum. Rolling the attacker over, he's horrified by what…or rather whom, he finds. Seflan Mos. A trusted member of his own inner circle. Trusted because he is Kallas Max's right hand man and loyal lieutenant; a man, it was said, who would do nothing without Max's direct order.

Betrayed. By his own man.

Mos looks up at him, horrified, as though he never thought he would have to face the fruits of his own treason. Mon-El can't help but smash his fist right into that face, an act which only sends him into a blood rage. Pulling back, he pummels the man with both fists so hard he shreds his own knuckles in the process. "Why?!"

"I will…tell you…nothing," Mos gurgles, blood rising in his mouth to coat his teeth.

"Did he order this?" Mon-El shouts, placing his hands around the man's throat. "Tell me, Traitor! Did he order you to murder my family?" Frothing at the mouth, Mon-El's spittle sprays the other man's face.

Mos can only gurgle in response.

"Husband," Kara's weakened voice calls, capturing his attention. She lay beneath the statue, her prone form surrounded by copper-blossoms dislodged from their bushes during the fight for her life. Her face is beaten and swelling, her lower lip busted and bleeding, but what truly draws his attention is the quickly spreading stain of blood on the side of her gown.

"Kara!" he screams, his throat closing with his emotion. The insignificant creature beneath him forgotten, Mon-El releases his hold on Seflan Mos and crawls over to her.

"Husband," she gasps, her hand holding the gushing wound over her belly, trying desperately to keep the blood inside of her. "The baby," she weeps. She displays no concern for her own life, only for that of their child.

"Help!" he shouts, praying for someone to come. Anyone. "Please someone, help!" Mon-El drops to his knees by her side and places his hands over her wound. They quickly become covered in her blood.

"It's too late," she tells him, her voice resigned.

"No!" he insists, the bitter taste of panic mixing with the salt of his tears in the back of his throat. "You are going to be fine. You _and_ our son." Keeping her wound covered, he moves one hand to cup her cheek. "Please..." he begs. "Stay with me. My heart."

"Stardust," she breathes, her eyelids drooping lazily. She removes her hand from the wound and places it on his tear-stained cheek. "Bury him in my arms, my love. We will be together in Rao's Light…one day…all of…."

Mon-El watches helplessly as her eyes glaze over and drift shut.

"Kara, NO!" his own strangled shout awakens him, his sweat-slicked body rocketing to a sitting position, as though forcibly propelled from the dream world into the waking one. His ragged breath catches in his lungs, not quite able to flow smoothly around the stone of emotion lodged in his throat.

"Whazzit?" she mumbles beside him.

"Nothing, sunshine," he lies, struggling to bring his breath under control. "Go back to sleep."

"'kay," she answers, compliantly and rolls away from him.

He throws off the comforter and slips from the bed, retreating to the bathroom where he can be assured of privacy. Such a sound sleeper, he's surprised that his outburst got any reaction at all from her, but he doesn't want to risk waking her for real.

He can still feel it—the pain of losing her, and their child—and internally he puts up a valiant fight to keep him from giving into his emotions. A fight he's destined to lose. Sitting on the toilet lid he grabs a hand towel from the counter and covers his mouth, the tears now flowing with abandon.

Rocking back and forth on his perch, he screams into the towel, the sturdy terry cloth muffling the sound of his pain.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Notes:

Smut chapter is back. First half is plot though.

 _Oh lights go down_

 _In the moment we're lost and found_

 _I just wanna be by your side_

 _If these wings could fly_

 _For the rest of our lives_

 _-Birdy – "Wings"_

Chapter 6/8

"But that wasn't your wife," Ral's voice reassures him gently. "Nor was it your child. You know that, right?" His brother places a hand on his shoulder.

"It was so real," Mon-El says, shaky hands wiping away the salty streams of tears on his cheeks.

"And so it was," Ral explains. "But it wasn't _your_ story."

"But it was Kara and she was…."

"In dreams our mind mixes up all sorts of things. It's like a subconscious…." Ral searches for the right word. "What's that children's party game with a stick and the candy?"

"Piñata," Mon-El supplies.

"It's like a subconscious piñata. Hit your brain with the sleep stick and there's no telling what goodies might spill out…all in a glorious mixed up mess. Your mind is trying to process a lot of information right now – some of it new and some of it very old, but freshly remembered. Memories with a new coat of paint," Ral chuckles darkly, "but no less ugly."

"Trel Gand," Mon-El realizes. "And Gata Fal-Ur."

"Yes," Ral confirms. "At least…most of it was."

"But…were those _my_ feelings or his feelings?" Mon-El wonders.

"Probably a little bit of both. Or a lot of both."

"It was so real," he breathes, slowly gaining control of his emotions. "The terror, the rage, the love…all of it. So real." A shiver he can't control races down his spine.

"Remember when we were kids and we found the chest with their personal effects—the ones that survived the Purge?"

It had been a single chest, hidden away by someone who had hoped the disaster of Trel Gand and Gata Fal-Ur might one day be forgotten, but couldn't bring themselves to destroy what parts of them were left. Hidden away by someone who must have loved them, despite the stories that circulated. "I remember."

"We found the letters inside. And the journals. They were real paper, remember? So their communications couldn't be intercepted on the Daxcess. That's probably why they survived," he suggests. "No one was looking for them."

"We were just boys, looking for treasure," Mon-El recalls. "I hoped the pages told stories of battles. Glorious stories of Daxamite victories over the evil Kryptonians." He felt mortified on behalf of the bloodthirsty boy he'd once been, before being confronted with the truth of death and loss and the cost one's soul must pay to learn of such things. "I wanted to impress Father."

"That was before we learned the truth."

"And when _you_ lived for making trouble."

"Those letters and journals were how I learned of love," Ral reminds him. "I dreamed of finding a mate like Gata. Someone who would see the obstacles to loving me and laugh in the face of them."

"You were obsessed," Mon-El pointed out. "You tortured me by making me read the damn things out loud until I begged you to let me stop. I just wanted stories of glory and…heroic deeds."

"Well," Ral sighs. "You were just a child at the time. You didn't have your priorities straight. And you needed the practice reading."

"I was a _year_ younger than you," Mon-El counters, affronted on behalf of his childhood self.

"A year can make quite the difference, huh?" Ral shrugs, dismissively. Only the sparkle in his green eyes betrays that he's teasing.

"You were always softer than I was, Ral. Father would say it was your mother's influence."

"Mother would say you grew up with a skewed sense of self. You _had_ to keep things inside."

"She wasn't wrong," Mon-El replies, sadly.

"But Earth has done wonders for you, brother. Cracked open that shell you built to protect yourself from his expectations. Who's the soft one now?"

Mon-El snorts, throwing Ral's words back at him. "A year can make quite the difference." It may have been closer to half a century since they'd actually stood in a room together, comparing and contrasting each other's faults with good-natured jibing, but it felt like only a short while ago—thanks to pod stasis.

"Maybe in some ways Kara is right. Perhaps Rao brought the two of you together to…make up for what happened to Trel and Gata. A second chance at reunification."

"You don't believe in Rao," Mon-El reminds him.

"I'm you, brother. I believe in what you believe. Make of that what you will."

Mon-El considers the implications of Ral's declaration for a moment before forcing himself to move on. "What's left to reunify?" he questions. "Both of our planets are gone. Krypton is in pieces and Daxam a wasteland of solar storms and nuclear winter if the reports are accurate. There's just…us."

"Exactly," Ral rejoices. "You'll have things so much easier than Gata and Trel. None of that palace intrigue and back-stabbing traitors nonsense. Seems like Rao has conveniently removed most of the obstacles."

"Most of them?"

"Well, there have to be _some_ obstacles," Ral lectures, as though this should be obvious, "otherwise it wouldn't be any fun."

"I'm having difficulty in seeing where the fun is in the extra vivid memories of Daxam's destruction, Ral—of your…death. Oh! And the added bonus of dreaming about the tragic story of two people I'd never even met."

"Fun might not have been the right word," Ral backtracks. "But obstacles, and overcoming them together, makes you stronger. So that you can face anything together."

"I don't want her burdened by this," Mon-El laments.

"We take on the burdens of those we love," Ral counsels. "It's our right…our privilege. Their hurts become our hurts, their scars our scars. Wouldn't you do the same for her?"

"But she's never said that," Mon-El shakes his head. "She's never mentioned love."

"And neither have you. Does that make it less true? Would you hesitate, even for a moment, to take her pain as your own?"

"I wasn't how we were taught," Mon-El adds. "How we were raised. To love one's mate is unnecessary."

"But _we_ learned it, brother. We learned it in their journals. We saw the other side, and how loving someone can be its own kind of glory. We saw the lengths Trel went to in order to ensure that their love endured. You read his last letter, don't you remember?"

"Loving someone can also be the key to your own destruction."

"A risk worth taking," Ral insists. "Would Trel not say the same, I wonder? If he were here right now."

"Not if loving her…destroys her."

"Don't be so melodramatic," Ral groans, melodramatically. "She's made of steel. She can handle it. Don't let your fear dictate what happens next. No one's ever made a decision steeped in fear that they didn't regret later."

"If she does…you know…."

"Love you?"

"Yeah, that. If she does…then finding out the truth…about what Father did. That could destroy her," Mon-El says, twisting the hand towel between his fists until it threatens to split in half. "That could destroy us both."

"Or maybe you're not giving her enough credit. Look, brother, splash some water on your face and get back to bed. You promised her you'd wake up with her in the morning and sunrise isn't far off."

Despite the dream, he'd managed to get about four hours of sleep, more than he'd cobbled together in the last few weeks. Mon-El heeds Ral's advice and splashes a few handfuls of cold water on his face, until the red rims around his eyes begins to clear.

"And can I just say…before we go back to radio silence…congratulations, brother! She truly is a gift…from Rao, if you like. I never would have taken her for a nestling in bed."

"Her surrender…her _zeal_ …was a pleasant surprise," Mon-El boasts.

"The caretaker role suits you, Brother…especially when your heart is engaged."

"I just want to give her what she needs."

"Tell yourself that all you like, but it's more than that, and you know it. As a child, your instincts were always to take care of people. How many cliffs did you pull me back from, huh? Then you spent nearly two decades trying to deny that part of yourself – trying to find peace in excess and debauchery-"

"Because I knew I'd never find it any other way," Mon-El interjected.

" _Now_ you have the chance to be true to yourself, both in your relationship and in the outside world. Makes it hard to not believe in a greater plan at work, my friend. Your needs are perfectly matched to one another. She needs a caretaker, and you a nestling. You both find it arousing…fulfilling. And what's more…I'm not sure you even realized how much you needed to be a caretaker…excuse me…a 'Daddy', until you heard that word come from her lips. A hole inside of you closed up when she called you that."

Mon-El studies himself in the mirror, his body already reacting to Ral's words. He wants to go back out there and wake her. Make her his again, in ways they hadn't even tried yet. His cock, a moment before just a limp, dangling appendage, is already halfway to hard.

"But…Princess?" Ral asks, his expression one of dubious certainty. "Wasn't that a little on-the-nose?"

"It's what they say here when they practice _Dexaris_ ," Mon-El rationalizes. "Or one of the pet names, at any rate. It's no more literal than her use of a term commonly associated with one's father."

"Okay," Ral intones, but in that frustrating way he has in which he implies he doesn't believe the tale that Mon-El is spinning. "Whatever you say."

Mon-El uses the facilities and washes his hands before flicking the light switch and slipping quietly out of the bathroom. Though he doesn't know why he bothers – despite her super hearing, she sleeps like the dead. Somehow, by some miracle, a genuine scream for help will wake her, but he could sing the Daxam Anthem at the top of his lungs to no effect.

She appears not to have moved an inch since he left her in the bed nearly half an hour ago. A glance out the window reveals that light pink horizon that promises sunrise in the making. He slips under the comforter with her, his arms itching to tug her into his embrace, but afraid doing so may disturb her so few hours left for her to slumber. Instead, he rolls away from her, settling on his side with his back towards hers while he orders his rapidly heating blood to cool down.

Mon-El closes his eyes and attempts to find a calming tempo for his breath, in hopes that he can get a few more, hopefully dreamless, hours of sleep.

In her sleep, she reaches for him, and when she comes up empty, her eyes shoot open. Had it been a dream? Falling asleep in his arms? Slightly disoriented from sleeping so heavily, Kara looks around taking stock. Her bed is a shambles, her headboard cracked and off kilter. She is most definitely stark naked, her body still feeling as though it has been _well_ used.

'Definitely not a dream,' she breathes a sigh of relief.

A sliver of light spills from the bathroom and Kara opens her mouth to call for him when she hears the mumbling sound of him speaking. Without thinking, she turns up her hearing to listen.

 _"_ _What's left to reunify?"_ She hears him ask. Who is he talking to? Reunify what? _"Both of our planets are gone. Krypton is in pieces and Daxam a wasteland of solar storms and nuclear winter if the reports are accurate. There's just…us."_ He's talking about her…about them.

 _"_ _Most of them?"_ After a brief pause he continues. _"I'm having difficulty in seeing where the fun is in the extra vivid memories of Daxam's destruction, Ral—of your…death. Oh! And the added bonus of dreaming about the tragic story of two people I'd never even met."_

Ral! Kara gasps. Wasn't that the name of his step-brother? The one who died on Daxam? He's having a conversation with his dead brother, she realizes, covering her mouth to hide the sound of her shock. Perhaps he's just dreaming. Sleepwalking? Kara's mind tries to convince her of this possibility but the sinking feeling in her gut tells her the truth she wishes she could un-hear. Mon-El sounds completely lucid and comprehensible. He's…hallucinating.

She continues to listen, hearing what she now knows is only one side of a two-part conversation. Each of his answers revealing the deeper insecurities that lie hidden in his psyche.

 _"_ _I don't want her burdened by this," Mon-El's voice laments._ He's worried about the flashbacks and, as she now realizes, his hallucinations. How long has this been going on?

 _"_ _But she's never said that. She's never mentioned love. I wasn't how we were taught," Mon-El adds. "How we were raised. To love one's mate is unnecessary."_ Her heart cracks open at his words.Of course he's never mentioned love either, but she always thought…hoped. There had been some uncertainty in the beginning, but she'd thought they were working through all of that. That choosing each other meant something more. He's always seemed so open to it, which is why his words sound incompatible with his behavior.

 _"_ _Loving someone can also be the key to your own destruction."_

 _"_ _Not if loving her…destroys her."_

 _"_ _If she does…you know…."_

 _"_ _Yeah, that. If she does…then finding out the truth…about what Father did. That could destroy her," Mon-El says. "That could destroy us both."_

She decides to listen no more and powers down her hearing, squeezing her eyes shut as if that's going to help shut out the things she's heard. There's something he's not telling her, something he's afraid will destroy her…and by extension…him? She isn't entirely sure since she can only hear half of what's going on in his head. If only J'onn could read Daxamite minds, she might be able to get some insight.

What had his father done, and to whom? And what could have possibly been so bad that it even now, so far removed from Daxam, it might threaten to destroy them both? Her mind races with more questions than she can possibly answer. She worries over the secret he clearly doesn't want revealed, but her mind keeps coming back to the hallucinations. Her mate is having full-blown hallucinations of a dead person and, first things first, that needs to be dealt with.

When she landed on Earth and went to live with the Danvers, she had grieved. The first step, denial, hadn't been an option open to her. No one was coming for her. No ship would breach the sky to retrieve her, to tell her there had been a mistake and that Krypton had survived after all. From space, in her swiftly escaping pod, she'd seen the bright flash of Krypton's core overtaking the planet until it exploded, she had felt the shockwave strike her ship.

Transplanted to Midvale USA, Earth, Kara Zor-El spent many nights, in that shared bedroom crying into her pillow, screaming into her pillow, even unexpectedly bursting into tears at the slightest reminder of home and family. On her worst days, sweet Kara Zor-El acted out in ways that could only be defined as a desire to spread pain, and then swamped by guilt, she made promises to Rao that she would be the best possible girl she could be, if only He would bring it all back. Bring _them_ all back.

But Mon-El had been allowed none of that.

Was it because he hadn't allowed himself to grieve, or because he hadn't been given the freedom to? Kara recalls in the early days of their acquaintance, after attempting to send a distress call back to Daxam, had shaken off 'dreary' thoughts in favor of more diverting activities. At the time, she had dismissed this action as the frivolous behavior of a typically boorish Daxamite, rather than the act of man in an intense state of denial.

He'd been given neither the room nor the time to process the sheer enormity of his loss. Is it any wonder that his mind would find a way to force it, even if it was only internally?

Why hadn't she seen it for the mask it really was? Perhaps if she had, his grief might never have progressed to this dangerous state. A nightmare likely drove him from their bed to seek sanctuary in the bathroom, where he could converse openly with his hallucinatory step-brother while she presumably slept. These are the types of signs for which Eliza warned her to be on the lookout.

Out of her depth in this arena, Kara recognizes that she will have to seek help in the morning, from J'onn and her mother, and even Alex. Perhaps together they can determine a plan of action.

Kara hears the toilet flush and the water in the sink turn back on, moments before he emerges from the bathroom, at last. Lifting the comforter, he slips into the bed, and she waits for him to pull her back into the warm shelter of his arms, but he doesn't. Instead, after a few moments hesitation he rolls over, turning his back to her. When he clearly needs her most, he eschews even the simplest comfort she has to offer in a ludicrous, and frankly hurtful, effort to keep her at arm's length from what he's suffering.

Still and silent, Kara sends a prayer a Rao, seeking His guidance and some sign of where to go from here. She could be angry, she knows, about the things he holds back from her, about the lack of trust and faith he has in her – after all the trust she's bestowed upon him. She could rage and rant about all of it, but a voice whispers inside that such actions would solve nothing and serve only to push him further away. And she can't afford that.

Right or wrong, for good or for ill—broken or whole—she loves him, and it's a love stronger than she could have ever imagined in her girlhood fantasies. Even if that love may not be returned yet, she places her faith in Rao that someday it will be. That his love is a fait accompli…meant to be…and so she will move forward into the future as his ordained mate.

As his stardust.

Tomorrow she will seek help, but tonight she can offer the kind of comfort of which she has endless amounts. Even while ostensibly sleeping. Eyes closed and trying to give her movements the appearance of shifting in her sleep, Kara thrashes about as though searching for his warmth. She butts up against his broad back, pressing into him so that her naked skin seals against his. Placing her forehead between his shoulder blades, Kara breathes into him, breathes him in, relaxing into his solid form as she tucks her legs against the backs of his and snakes one arm around his chest. Slowly, their breathing synchronizes until they're both back on the edge of sleep.

Everything will start getting better tomorrow, she tells herself. Help is just a phone call away. She needs to make him see that she's here for him, no matter what. Once he understands that, they can get him on the road to recovery. Kara feels the fingers of one of his hands interlace with hers, and she takes it as a sign that he accepts her offered comfort.

His hand now in hers, Kara allows sleep to overtake her once more.

When next she opens her eyes, the morning sun streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows of her bedroom, high in the sky, but not _too_ high. A quick glance reveals that her alarm clock is twenty-three minutes from total meltdown. Her body is already needy because sometime during sleep, their positions had reversed and Mon-El now spoons behind her, one of his legs wedged between hers, his lower thigh pressed to her gathering heat. One of his hands cups a breast like it's the touchstone anchoring him to this reality, as his steady breath tickles the sensitive crook where her neck and shoulder meet. His cock is like a red-hot poker sandwiched between her ass and his pelvis, so she's acutely aware that at least part of him is awake.

Kara rolls her hips, simultaneously teasing his cock and riding his knee until she can feel the heat banking within her. Catching her bottom lip between her teeth, she attempts to bite back a greedy moan, and fails miserably. Kara reaches for his thigh, urging it upwards to provide more pressure to her increasingly sensitive core.

She knows the exact moment Mon-El comes fully awake, because his grip on her breast tightens and his knee takes over some of the work of pushing her to the brink. His mouth latches onto her shoulder, nipping and sucking at her skin, working his way up to settle at the shell of her ear as she rides his knee with masochistic languor. "Does my little nestling need me this morning?"

"Yes," Kara sighs, her hips continuing their drive, as she grows wetter and wetter. She maintains her arousal, like stirring a pot to keep the concoction from boiling over, but she wants to wait for him before letting go. Her need for him is a conundrum, because the more she has of him, the more she desires, like a boundless gluttony in the face of an unending banquet. Each time they finish, sweaty and sated, she believes her desire quenched, only to have it return more quickly than she could have imagined and with twice the fervor. Is it like this for everyone? Or is it simply because the yellow sun radiation constantly replenishes their energy stores?

Mon-El bites down on her earlobe hard, eliciting a gasp from her and driving her shoulder up protectively towards her ear. "Yes…?" he growls, expectantly.

"Yes…Daddy," she provides, the smile that lazily crosses face uninhibited and completely reflexive.

"Good girl," he purrs. She can practically hear his smile as he tucks his face into her neck and cants his hips into her ass, rubbing his cock into the crease between her cheeks. With his thumb and forefinger, Mon-El pinches her nipple, drawing the bud out with a tug and a sharp twist. The initial pain she feels, causing her to moan, settles into warm charge that travels straight to her core, providing another gush of lubrication. Her body prepares the way for him each and every time, and with very little effort on his part. "I need you now," he rasps.

Mornings are an all-fire rush for him. He can exhibit the same kind of control he usually does, but there's something about surrendering to his body's primal urges first thing in the morning that he finds particularly satisfying. And judging from the warm, wet heat on his thigh, she requires no further cajoling.

"I need you, too, Daddy," she mewls, her voice barely above a whisper. "All the time," she confesses. "It never stops."

"I know, Princess. It's the same for me." Abandoning her breast, his hand slides up and clasps her chin, turning her face to his waiting mouth. Kara opens for him even before their lips touch and they taste of each other, dinking down each other's flavors like it's the rarest of wines. "Every time," he tells her when he's capable of prying his mouth from hers. "I only want you more afterwards."

Twisting her torso a bit, Kara reaches behind her, in between their bodies and locates his hardened length of patient steel. Her fingertips tease but don't grasp and the sensation is so staggering that his throat swallows reflexively and he must force his hips to remain still so that they don't demand more than she's willing to give.

"I like the way your cock feels, Daddy."

"Do you, Princess?" His hand still cups her chin, encompassing her lower face, fingers on one cheek, while his thumb strokes her bottom lip.

"Mmm-hmmm," she replies, licking her lips and catching a taste of the tip of his thumb. "Like velvet." A pout forms on her lips and a crinkle grows between her eyebrows. "I wish there could be nothing between us."

"I know," he commiserates. "And you felt like heaven around my cock the one time there wasn't. Gods, you are so perfect, Kara. Soon," Mon-El promises. "One way or another." He imagines taking her when she's ripe with his child – as ripe as she was in his dream.

"One way or another," she echoes. "You'll fill me up, won't you? Fill me with you?" A mischievous twinkle lights her eyes before she sucks his entire thumb in to the warm cavern of her mouth.

Like giving his thumb a blowjob, she sucks and sucks, bobbing her head up and down, her tongue swirling around the tip, until he's finding it difficult to think straight. "Hand me a condom," he orders quickly, before the raging beast inside that wants to fill her with his seed—wants to breed her—takes over.

Lest he change his mind, as if he would, she scrabbles for the box in the open drawer of the bedside table at speeds invisible to the human eye. "Stay right where you are," he commands, taking the package from her and shifting to his back just long enough to roll the condom down his shaft and secure it in place.

Losing access to the pressure of his thigh between her legs, she burns for him even more now and leans into him when he rolls back into her. Skin to skin, she can feel him from head to toe, his back against her back, his massive, muscular thighs pressing to her toned, but far more delicate ones. She heaves a sigh of relief when she feels the head of Mon-El's cock line up to her covetous entrance, the burn for him becoming nearly more than she can handle.

"Will you—" he begins.

"Yes, please!" she interrupts.

"If you won't let me ask, then tell me so I know I have your permission." His fingers at the base of his cock, he teases her with the tip, sliding back and forth through the slick seam, from the entrance to clit and back again, over and over as her hips writhe with anticipation. "Say the words."

"You know what I need, Daddy," she pleads, her breath coming hard fast as she throws her head back.

"I do," he concurs, "but I will never take you without your word. Our games can be tricky, Princess. I need to know you want it as much as I do, every step of the way."

"I do," she whimpers, nodding her head. "I want it so bad. I need you inside me. Fuck me, Daddy. Please? Please, fuck me?"

Mon-El loves to hear her beg, loves that high pitched tone only he gets to hear, but has no desire to torment her. At least not this morning. He enters in one slow stroke, as deep as he can go in this position. Spooning from behind, on their sides, this position isn't about depth, it's about proximity. It's about being close to her, their bodies aligned from head to toe, her pressing back to meet his thrusts as he whispers filthy things into her ears.

Her body remembers him, welcomes him into her like a he's a soldier come home from war, jubilant and reverent at the same time. Their position prevents the deepest penetration but the sensation of his hot breath on her ear and the way his hand snakes under her arm and grasps her shoulder for leverage helps to compensate admirably.

Mon-El pumps in and out of her slowly at first, just enjoying the searing heaven of her slick, clasping clutch. The same muscles that grasp at his cock as he retreats provide an excruciating resistance upon his return that is nothing short of sublime.

Kara turns her head looking for his mouth and he is only too happy to oblige, feeding her his grunts of effort while rapaciously dining on the mewling whimpers of her unguarded pleasure. He savors her inarticulate pleas as she devours the fruits of his labor and for both, it is a gluttonous banquet of the richest cuisine.

Words of encouragement or instruction quickly become unnecessary as they've learned to read between the lines of each other's body language. The way her body tenses, her legs and thighs quivering, fingers clamping down on the comforter like a vise grip tell him that all she needs is the final push over the edge.

His grunts vibrating into the skin of her neck and shoulder begin to resemble to long, purring growl of a predator on the hunt and his thrusts turn feral, so she knows he won't last much longer. Kara bends her outside leg, pivoting it upwards and lifting it closer into her body, opening herself up more for his hungry cock. Sliding a shaking hand between her legs, she dips two fingers into the wet seam of her exposed folds and locates the swollen bundle of nerves that cries out for attention.

Mon-El slithers his bearing arm between her head and the pillow, wrapping it around until it crosses her neck and clasps onto her opposite shoulder. His free hand bats hers away, which was busily manipulating her clit to very little effect. "I've got you, baby," his voice grates like sandpaper against her ear, sending a shiver down her spine. "You just let go."

And she does. Kara's body melts into him, allowing herself to be ridden by the rhythmic pounding of his cock, the sensations of fullness, of heat racing through her veins and sparking her nerve endings, and of something inescapable washing over her like a tidal wave. Everything goes white and bright behind closed eyelids, her mouth opens wide for a scream that is silent but no less… _there_. Kara hears his voice praising her.

"That's…my…girl," he raves, fucking her through the climax, prolonging and amplifying it. "So tight…gods…your clutch wants my cock so bad. Do you want my come, too?"

"Yes," she cries.

"I'm going to fill you until your womb can't hold anymore." Finding something inside of himself he never before could have imagined was there, Mon-El's hand slips from her snatch and settles on her belly. "Do you know…what it…does to me?"

In his heightened state of arousal it would not have taken much to send him reeling, but just the thought of it, of his child growing inside of her, does the trick. A streak of searing electricity causes his heavy balls to constrict, like drawing taut the band of a slingshot before letting loose its ordnance. "Fuck!" he curses when he finally lets go, his pelvis bucking into her backside with stinging force. Reflexively, his arms tighten like a vise around her as he empties the rest of his load with three more thrusts. Each plunge is more debilitating than the last, as if every release passes something integral from him over to her, leaving him utterly enervated by the time he finishes.

With the last shudders of his orgasm Mon-El's arms go limp around her, and he has just enough lucidity remaining to kiss the back of her neck and along her shoulders. Reverently, in the bubble of communion their lovemaking has created, he showers her with the love he feels but cannot yet say.

As always, separating from her is a near-traumatic experience for the both of them, but as he must for now, he carefully withdraws and rolls onto his back, his body spent. His mind, however, experiences a brief, post-orgasmic moment of clarification that will fade all too soon as his heart rate returns to normal and his body enters its refractory period.

Perhaps he can blame it on the nightmare, the emotional conversation with Ral afterwards, or waking up with her in his arms and the sun peeking through the windows, but something about the morning sex with Kara has taken its toll on him. Physically and emotionally. Learning that she could be pregnant, a phenomenon unseen on Daxam since Gata Fal-Ur and another seven generations before her, and then seeing it so vividly in his dreams, had stirred up emotions he had never imagined himself capable.

He remembers, like the itch of a phantom limb, the way their son moving under her skin felt against his palm and he wants to weep with the incomprehensible loss of it. But despite the desolation, there had been emotional profit in the dream as well.

Growing up, he'd always known that siring a child, continuing his bloodline, was a duty he would one day have to fulfill—would be _forced_ to fulfill, one way or another. To say he had been preveniently resentful of any future offspring would be an understatement of galactic proportions. The very thought of having a child, of giving his father exactly what he wanted, was abhorrent to him. Mon-El had actively taken measures to prevent siring offspring, both by receiving secret injections of the male hormone suppressors that would prevent his seed from taking root, and by purposefully choosing women with who to cavort that his father would view as genetic undesirables.

But those feelings of resentment are gone now, evaporated like an ice cube in the face of Kara's heat vision. Falling in love and letting go of the reasons that, brick-by-brick, built that resentment, means that he can see the possibilities that lay ahead and look forward to them. Even if he and Kara aren't quite ready to dive in head-first.

Kara rolls to her back next to him, not quite willing to muster the energy to shift all the way to her side yet. She splays an arm across him, the back of her sifting through the patch of hair on his abdomen, so that she can maintain an intimate contact with him. So addicted to him, to his attentions, it's emotionally difficult for when he has to pull away. "What are you thinking?" she asks.

A flash of concern strikes her and she wonders if he's seeing or hearing from his hallucinatory step-brother right now. Kara stuffs down the bubble of jealousy that rises within her. She doesn't want to share him when they're like this, but at the same time…it doesn't make sense to be jealous of something that isn't _real_. It's a waste of emotion, her brain tells her. Too bad her heart doesn't seem to listen.

Mon-El removes his condom and ties it off as best as he can, curling it into his fist, because he's not quite ready to crawl away from her. Reaching up, he tucks his other hand under the back of his head. "I never wanted children," he says. "The idea was…well…repugnant isn't too harsh of a word."

Kara's breath comes to a full stop, and her stomach clenches involuntarily with dread.

"But the reasons for that are all gone now."

"They are?" she asks, trying not to sound too hopeful. Though he doesn't explain, Kara thinks she understands what he's saying. That his promises the night before of being in this together were about more than mere lip service. And something happened between then and now to make that more concrete for him.

"Huh," he says, a notion popping into his head fully formed, liked being handed an infant from the birthing matrix, without having watched it grow or develop.

"What?"

"Losing Daxam didn't _take_ everything from me," he declares, feeling a piece of his shattered soul reform and shape into something new. "Losing Daxam gave me some things, too."

"Like…what?" she urged softly. She didn't want to press too hard, or force him to say more than he was ready to admit.

"The freedom to find out who I am without being told."

"Krypton was like that, too," she commiserates. "Birthing matrices were more efficient and resulted in fewer anomalies and mutations. So they thought they could shape us into what they wanted, what they thought society needed, before we took our first breath."

"And what did Krypton make of you?"

"My father was a scientist—a seeker—and my mother fought for justice."

"So reporter and superhero…."

"I guess I never tried to fight my nature," she comments.

"Because it's a noble one."

"What did they want to make of you?" Kara wonders.

He sighs, wondering if the time to tell her the truth is now, but knowing that he doesn't have the courage, at least not completely. Not while he's this naked…this vulnerable. "A breeder," he replies.

"I don't…understand." Finally, she finds the energy and the wherewithal to shift her body towards him. For the most part because she sends a wave of ennui pouring off of him in waves. "Why would they want to breed a palace guard?"

"I have good genes."

Kara grins and places a flirty, suggestive kiss on his pectoral. "I can't argue with that."

Her joke draws a smile from him, helping him to shake off his lingering melancholy. "Anyway…no one's telling me what I have to want anymore. I'm making my own decisions. Or trying to…anyway. It's sad I had to lose my whole planet to gain that. And I know that I want you and everything that comes with you. I want a life and a partnership and a secret identity and a suit," he chuckles.

"And…the other?"

"Whenever it happens…however it happens. It's not just something…I'm here for. It's something I want to be a part of." His hand slips out from beneath the back of his head and seeks hers, their fingers interlacing. "Something that would…honor me."

It's another reason to feel that sense of relief, because the pink elephant hasn't stopped weighing down her since that night in DEO gym and not just because of the bad timing of it all career-wise (for both of them), or because it's so early in their relationship, but because of something far more worrisome and potentially sinister.

"What if…?" she begins, second-guessing whether she should share this burden with him – plant this seed on his already haunted mind.

"What if…what, Kara?"

"What if they won't let us?" she asks.

"What if _who_ won't let us?"

"There's a Senator in Congress, the one who submitted the bill for Alien Registration," she explains. "Alex heard rumors that she's working on something new. Something that will make it legal to take away our reproductive rights."

"Can they do that?" he queries. It seems excessively cruel that he could be taken from a planet that tried to force its reproductive agenda upon him, only to end up on a planet that might seem determined to vote away his right to parenthood. He and Kara both come from dead planets, they should have the right, if not the duty, to salvage of that what they can.

"They can try," Kara replies. "But, honestly…the government isn't what worries me the most."

It doesn't take Mon-El long to connect the same dots that Kara already has. "Cadmus," he breathes, a red-hot fury rising up within him, utterly destroying the post-coital cloud upon which he floated only a moment ago.

"After the lengths they went to capture me just to get some of my blood. It frightens me to think what lengths they would go to just to get their hands on our child. What they might try to learn from her…or him. How they could…." She can't bear to finish the thought, let alone the sentence.

"That is _never_ going to happen," Mon-El vows, rolling towards her and taking her face in his hands, his Teflon-eyes boring into hers, sharp like knives. "I swear to you…if anyone ever tries to harm our child, I will burn down the world to end them. It may not be what Daxam taught," he adds, "but it's what my heart _knows_ is right."

Ending anyone, even the worst of villains, has always been a last resort for her. Bringing death and dispensing justice are not the same things, because sometimes death is too pat an ending for those who toil in the service of harming others in the name of power. People like Lillian Luthor.

But this is different. This isn't about being a superhero or playing by any set of rules designed to keep the general public safe and to maintain their trust. This is about adhering to a set of rules designed to keep _one_ person safe and an authority higher than she can possibly overrule instituted those rules. These new rules are primal and unassailable and she knows that she is only getting a glimpse of the true allegiance they will compel.

"We'll figure something out," she says, quirking one side of her mouth in a smile meant to be reassuring. "If I'm pregnant we'll find a way to…hide it from the public."

"Hide it?"

"Well, yeah," she replies with a shrug. "Private Citizens Kara Danvers and Mike Matthews can have a child, but Supergirl and Valor should probably keep things professional. Lillian Luthor is savvy; she would make the connection easily, especially based on what she already knows. If she hasn't already."

"You don't think your adoptive father would have…?"

"No," she shakes her head. "Never. Not after everything he's done to keep me safe."

"We'll find a way," he promises. "If I have to change my name again, change my disguise, and change my job…I swear to you, I won't let anyone harm our Kryptamite."

Kara's forehead creases with a mixture of humor, confusion, and intrigue. "Kryptamite?" she echoes, a smile slowly spreading across her face. "You didn't want to go with Daxatonian?"

Mon-El chuckles, remembering the blissful moments of the dream as if they had been real moments from a long-lost past between them. "No," he tells her. "Kryptamite sounds better."

Kara nods and smiles. "I think so, too."

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

Title: Edging Towards Synchronicity

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: March 11, 2017

Chapters:

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

 _So open your eyes and see_

 _The way our horizons meet_

 _And all of the lights will lead_

 _Into the night with me_

 _And I know these scars will bleed_

 _But both of our hearts believe_

 _All of these stars will guide us home_

 _-Ed Sheeran – "All These Stars_

Chapter 7/8

It's never been so difficult to crawl out of bed and get ready for work. Usually he's the one leaving her, but this time the shoe is on the other foot as she considers and rejects the idea of taking a sick day. Of course, that wouldn't fly with her boss, who knows full well she doesn't _get_ sick. Kara encourages Mon-El to go back to sleep, hoping that he'll be able to get some rest without the specter of night looming over him. He's already fallen back asleep by the time she finishes her shower and dresses in her slacks and light sweater over a button-up blouse. Taking one last look, Kara resists the urge to kiss his forehead before gathering her purse and keys and slipping out of the apartment.

Her day will ostensibly be spent on the hunt for the elusive new hero, Valor, about whom the public clamors to hear. She considers telling James the truth about Valor's identity. Of course, working as closely with the DEO as James does, his discovery of the truth is only a matter of time, but Kara decides it's best to break the news in a place accustomed to keeping secrets, rather than one dedicated to exposing them.

Later in the morning, she's glad she made this decision in advance, or she might have folded like a cheap picnic table when she looked up to find him leaning against the door jamb to her office. Only moments before, she had just finished putting the room back to rights after last night's less-than-professional, but thoroughly satisfying, use of her desk.

"Oh!" she startles, sitting up straight in her chair. Even going so far as to adjust her laptop and coffee cup so that they sit perfectly straight on her desk, to project her most professional image. "Hey James," she greets, before clearing her throat.

"I can't believe I snuck up on you," he teases. He leans, one shoulder against the jamb, one ankle crossed jauntily over the other, with his hands tucked into his pockets. "You're usually more on point than that."

"I'm not usually expecting people to sneak up on me at work."

"Then you haven't been a reporter long enough."

"Fair point," she concedes, her laugh a little more nervous than she would like.

"But seriously…you're distracted."

"I have a lot going on these days. You know…secret identity and all."

"And the new boyfriend," James injects, in a measuring tone as though testing the waters before him.

Kara's eyes widen and she adjusts her glasses on her face, studiously avoiding eye contact until she can marshal her limited cool. "Oh…."she drawls, screwing her lips up nervously. She knew James would have to find out eventually, but telling him seemed…awkward. Although maybe not as awkward as him finding out from other, unknown sources. "How did you…." She clears her throat while simultaneously emitting a nervous chuckle. "How did you find out?"

James tilts his head to the side. "I wasn't sure until just now."

Kara fidgets uncomfortably, pulling at the hem of her blouse. "What gave it away?" she asks, praying that she and Mon-El hadn't been caught on a camera somewhere in a compromising position.

"A little bird might have whispered something to my ear."

"A little bird?"

"He may work at the DEO now, but Winn and I still talk. Daily."

"How does Winn know?" she asks, _really_ hoping they weren't caught on a security camera.

"Deductive reasoning, apparently. You may have noticed…he's kind of smart like that. So…how long has this been going on? Winn and I suspected something when we saw you together at Lena Luthor's gala."

"At the gala?" she laughs forcefully, shaking her head. "No, no, no…that wasn't…we weren't…there was no—"

"There was _something_ there," James interrupted. "Maybe you didn't know it yet, but other people noticed. _I_ noticed. A certain chemistry that defied your initial distrust of one another."

"It's very new," she concedes. "But good…great!" she corrects, self-consciously not wanting to sound like she thinks she's settling.

"I'm not sure I understand him," James confesses. "He seems…shallow, but you must see something there."

Kara's instinct to defend the man she loves rises within her, but she stuffs it down, telling herself that James hasn't had the chance to see what she sees. "That's my fault," she mea culpas. "I judged him harshly when he first arrived, James. I let my prejudices get in the way of seeing what was truly there. And I'm afraid those prejudices may have tainted the way others viewed him as well, including you. But underneath that shallow façade there's a good man, a deeply loyal man who's able to see me as more than just plain Kara Danvers, or Supergirl, Hero of Earth. He just sees Kara Zor-El. He sees _me_ …and he cares about me."

"I cared about you," he points out.

"But…he's not human, James."

"And that matters," he infers.

"James," she begins, stepping out from behind her desk, "I would _always_ have to hold back with you. Every hug…every kiss…every touch…carefully calculated not to hurt you. I couldn't risk that…someday I'd slip up and forget. I'm not sure you understood that. How could you? I didn't even understand it…at first."

"But Lois and Clark…."

"Clark grew up in this planet. Eliza explained it to me like this: his musculature was literally in infancy when he arrived on Earth. His muscles developed and reached maturity _here_ and somehow, over time, he was able to make human strength, human speed his default setting. He only turns 'Superman' on when he needs to. He's able to physically compartmentalize better than I am. Not that it won't ever happen for me, but it could take years…decades, even. With constant practice."

"But with Mon-El…you don't have to," he finally begins to see the bigger picture, the realization dawning in his eyes. "You can have a life right now instead of decades from now."

"That's right. But I don't want you to think that I'm with Mon-El because he's my only choice. Remember when I told you I was worried that I would never find someone that would know me, someone who could be my perfect partner?"

"I remember. I told you…you would find someone."

"Well, you were right. I found him. And what we have isn't based on mere physical compatibility. It's based in shared histories and, even though our planets were rivals and very different culturally, there's still a commonality there that can't be ignored. It's something we can build on, something we _want_ to build on."

"I hear you," James replies, crossing his arms at his chest and taking a deep breath. "But if he hurts you, I'll beat him with a lead pipe."

All things considered, it is the best reaction she could have hoped for. Kara lets loose an easy smile. "The line forms behind Alex."

"I guess that's fair."

"I'm sorry, if you felt like I was hiding it from you or something. That wasn't my… _our_ …intention. It's just that…."

"It's new," James supplies.

"Exactly."

"I understand. Sometimes you need to keep new relationships in a bubble for a while. To protect them while they're fragile. I apologize if my questions forced you to reveal it before you were ready."

"No need to apologize, James," she shakes her head. "The truth is, I didn't know how to tell you. I've never been in this situation before."

"Then it's good we got it out of the way."

"One might even say a relief."

"So...about the other thing…how's the search going?"

"Search?"

"For the new guy…?" he prompts, leaning forward. "The story I assigned you. Ring any bells?"

"Oh! Of course. I've got some pieces that need putting together. Several eyewitness reports of seeing a man in a black hoodie siphoning electricity from transformers in the business district. One of those times occurring on or around the same time as the bridge incident. That can't be a coincidence, right?"

"I wouldn't think so. What's your next move then?"

"Well I was thinking that…some of the buildings in the business district have traffic cams positioned on top of them. I thought I might see if any of them could get an angle on our mysterious man in black. What do you think?"

"Worth a try," he shrugs.

'That's what I thought," she replies, adjusting her glasses on her face. "And I have a few follow-up questions for some of the eyewitnesses, so I need to track them down. Did Snapper say anything…about assigning me the story?"

"He had difficulty talking…because of the steam coming out of his ears. Just a heads up though, he may have implied that he would assign you a story in the near future designed to extract some outstanding professional dues from you. Prepare yourself."

"It's going to be bad, isn't it?"

"And as embarrassing as humanly possible," James confirmed. "How you handle it will test your mettle as a reporter, I'm fairly certain of that. You can still back out, you know? I can give the story to someone else…."

"No!" she cries, perhaps just a little too emphatically. She chuckles, and plays off her sudden attack of zeal. "Good stories always have their price," she quotes, determined to see the Valor story to the end. If for no other reason than to protect Mon-El.

James smiles, recognizing the mantra. "It took Clark a lot longer than you to learn that lesson."

"He can be a little thick sometimes," she quips, sharing a conspiratorial smile with the man that knows her cousin even better than she does.

James tilts his head back and laughs, the sound echoing down the corridor. "Truer words were never spoken. Well, it seems like you have work to do. I'll let you get to it."

"Thanks, James. For everything," she acknowledges.

"I just want what's best for you, Kara. You know that Clark sent me here to look out for you."

"Yeah," she nods. "And I appreciate everything that you've done."

"It seems like Kara's got her personal life covered now. But I'm always going to have Supergirl's back," he vows.

"I never doubted it for a second, James," she assures him.

James Olsen had been a crush; she can see that clearly now. A crush born of loneliness and the frantic search for a mate that swamps some people when they're in their twenties with no partner in sight and the weight of a burgeoning career bearing down upon them. And maybe she had seen a hint of safety in him because deep down she knew it would never work. He had been older, a mentor, and emotionally entangled with another woman – a woman Kara liked and respected, which had made it even messier. She had pined for him, like a little schoolgirl pining for the older boy that never quite paid her enough attention.

But why then, when the stars aligned and the timing was just right, had her gut screamed at her to withdraw? Perhaps it was because her heart needed to be free for something else. A better fit.

Kara feels somewhat lighter, having revealed her relationship to the man who only a few months ago had been the focus of her romantic interest, and this sudden release of emotional baggage has her feeling bold and suddenly feistier than usual. "Oh! I saw on the news wall coming in this morning that Guardian had an active night."

"He busted a drug ring and managed to stop a random kidnapping," James nods, smiling.

"What are the police saying?"

"They're not exactly happy."

"I bet!" she replies, as though this outcome should have been obvious.

"What do you mean?" he asks.

Kara shuffles through some of her Valor notes, trying to get them organized in order of priority in terms of follow-up. "The kidnapping is great; he saved someone in the moment. But the drug bust…cops usually spend months building cases for those things and a vigilante swooping in at the last minute has a tendency to ruin all of their hard work. Cops don't like getting scooped either, and when they do…the criminals with good lawyers can get them off on a technicality. Turns out things like warrants are actually necessary. I wonder how many months of taxpayer funded man-hours went into trying to nail those dealers. As a reader, _and_ a taxpayer, I would be interested in know that. Maybe the reporter you've assigned to the Guardian can follow-up on that angle with the police. You know, I bet Maggie Sawyer could find out. You met her at the bar…right?"

"Oh," he exclaims, recalling that night when Alex introduced her new friend to the group. "Right, right. We've met before. Anyway…man-hours notwithstanding, Guardian left the dealers tied up, surrounded by 28 kilos of Oxy. I don't think they're going to have a problem making their case."

"Maybe…maybe not. Talk to Maggie. She's been assigned to track Guardian. I'm sure she'll be a good source for inside information on the investigation. Whom did you assign?"

James fidgets uncomfortably and the silence is telling.

"James?" she inquires. "Who's the reporter assigned to the Guardian story?"

He clears his throat. "I am," he replies. "I've been tracking him."

Kara's noticed James apparent man-crush on the vigilante— _everyone_ has noticed it—and considers calling him out for his clear confirmation bias, but thinks better it. After all, when it comes to Valor and his story, she's not exactly impartial. And it's even worse because she's knows who Valor is, knows his secret identity, while James' opinions are shaped purely by Guardian's actions and not by who the vigilante is beneath the lead-based mask.

Or…are they?

Lead-based mask….

How many people know about her weakness to lead, that it hampers her abilities, particularly her x-ray vision? Out of necessity, it is a secret so tightly kept that only the people of her inner circle know about it. People she trusts. Because if it ever got out to the criminal element it would spread like wildfire and her job would become significantly more difficult overnight. So how is it that this Guardian, a self-styled hero of no apparent super powers, wears a lead-based armor, with a mask that covers his entire face?

Almost as if he expected to be x-rayed. Almost as if he anticipated her every move to identify him, understood her playbook.

Maybe…Guardian understood her playbook…because he helped her write it.

"What do you think you're doing, James?" she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.

"What I was always meant to," he replies. He saw the moment the proverbial light bulb went off over her head and knew she had made the connections.

"You have no idea what you're getting into," she insists, her brow crinkling with concern.

"I worked with your cousin for fifteen years," he contradicts her, "and then with you. I've been a sidekick long enough, Kara. It's graduation day."

"You could be killed!"

"I'm aware of the risks. And it's better than living a life on the sidelines, wanting to help but always getting shoved out of the way. Do you think I made this decision over night?" he asks. "This has been coming for years."

"I can't let you—"

"Can't _let_ me?" he interrupts. "I am a grown man, with vastly more life experience than you. Nobody tells me what I can and cannot do. Not Clark and certainly not you. You know…Clark talked about how one of the reasons Krypton died was because of the arrogance of its people, and the eagerness with which they played God. He said it's one of the reasons he hesitated to become Superman. He was afraid he would forget how to be human, and that he didn't want to turn into one of them. Didn't want to repeat their mistakes. Apparently you don't have the same misgivings. You want to stop me? Have me thrown in jail."

With that, he tilts his head a bit and stalks out of the room, walking away before she can gather her racing thoughts and call after him. Kara drops into her chair, fuming. She wants to go after him and tell him how dangerous this risky lifestyle is for someone without impenetrable skin, but she knows that this building is not the place for such a discussion. And she also knows nothing she says will change his mind. Not now. Not after he's caught the hero bug.

Her anger drops down to a simmer when she begins to think about it instead of letting her emotions run rampant. Not long ago she spent several days on Earth-1 with a collective of heroes fighting off an alien invasion from the Dominators. Some of those heroes, like Barry Allen and Heatwave (she felt a strange shiver, like titillation mixed with mild revulsion just thinking about him) were meta-human with powers bestowed on them by an infection of dark matter. But others were not: like Oliver Queen, a normal man whose body and archery skills were honed to a weapon by time spent on a deserted island, or so he said. Or Sara Lance, a trained assassin (reformed) with unparalleled fighting talents, both in hand-to-hand as well as the bow staff. And probably any weapon put in front of her, really.

The point is, she realizes, that there are others out there, human beings, who have heard the call and risen to greet it. She left Earth-1 feeling like she had made a true, if somewhat reluctant, friend in Oliver Queen, and he is only doing what James Olsen wants to do. How can she offer support to Oliver, Sara, John Diggle, Ray Palmer, and all the others who put on a mask and a suit with nothing to back them up but their wits and their hard-earned skills, and not offer James the same hand of alliance?

It strikes her then, out of the blue, that she's not angry because James decided to become a masked hero. She's angry because he did it without her.

Kara will have to inform J'onn, if his abilities as a telepath haven't already revealed James' secret to him. If she's going to offer James her support it's going to be in the most overwhelming way possible, she smiles. From now on he'll have a team to back him up, strategies that don't include stepping all over official police investigations, and an eye in the sky looking out of him, whether he wants it or not.

She spends the better part of the rest of day, doing exactly what she promised James she would be doing. She tracks down a camera with a half-decent angle and manages to walk away with a flash drive with five hours of unseen footage to go over. If she finds anything incriminating or revealing Winn will be able to hack the mainframe and replace the original with looped footage. Thankfully, the follow-up question to her eyewitnesses lead nowhere – exactly as she'd hoped.

A full day of damage control under her belt, Kara decides to head to the DEO, where she is surprised to find Eliza waiting for her, along with Alex, in the conference room.

"Eliza, I was going to call you,' she says, throwing her arms gently around her adoptive mother. "What are you doing here?"

"After your call last night, I couldn't sleep at all. I'm just so worried about Mon-El, sweetie. How is he doing?"

"Mom says he had flashbacks when you got back to the loft last night," Alex added.

"I'm sorry, honey, I just assumed you told Alex. You two were never good at keeping secrets."

Kara shakes her head. "It's fine. I was going to talk to you both anyway. I don't know what to do." Just seeing the empathetic expressions on their faces, brings a rise of emotion from her chest. It is so easy, when she is with him, to forget that he's driving towards a cliff with leaking brake fluid. But here with her mother and sister, and their matching faces of concern, she remembers that what he's going through is no stroll through the park, and if not handled with care, could end on a tragic note.

"What is it?" Eliza asks, acknowledging that there must be more to the story is her second daughter is practically reduced to tears. "Did something else happen?"

"It's worse than we thought," she confesses, finding it difficult to drag air into her lungs. "I overheard him in the bathroom early this morning…talking to someone."

"Talking to…whom?" Alex asks, her eyes squinting with suspicion.

"His step-brother Ral."

"He has a step-brother…?" Oh…wait," Alex stops, allowing Kara's words to truly sink.

" _Had_ a step-brother," Kara corrects. "Ral died on Daxam…of course."

"Okay," Alex nods, crossing her arms. "He was talking to a dead person. That's not that unusual when people are grieving. People go to cemeteries every day and talk to their lost loved ones."

"That's just it, Alex. He wasn't _talking_ to Ral. He was having a _conversation_ with him; of which, I was only able to hear half. You know…the living half."

"He's hallucinating," Eliza concludes. Kara's mom cups her elbow and draws her to the chair and leads her to sit, before commandeering the one next to her. Alex perches behind her mother, leaning an arm on the tall back of the conference room chair. "It's unlikely that this just began happening last night. Kara. In your recent conversations with him, did you have any reason to suspect he was experiencing hallucinations?"

"Such as?"

"Did he talk to someone not there while in your presence?"

"Never," Kara answered, but taking a moment to consider the question from deeper angles. "But…there were times when I felt like I didn't have his full attention. That his eyes were being drawn elsewhere?"

"But he never gave you any more overt clues that there was more going on than he was showing you?"

"I mean…I think I sensed he was hiding something, but overt? No."

"That's good," Eliza says, turning back to look at Alex for her consensus. Alex nods in response. "That's very good."

"Brief Reactive Psychosis isn't uncommon when someone experiences a major trauma," Alex explains. "It can happen when you lose a loved one and Mon-El lost far more than that. His brain is trying to deal with that and this Ral has become the Avatar for that loss."

"But, from what you described, he hasn't completely lost touch with reality and that's good."

Alex agrees. "It appears that he knows he's hallucinating, because he's taking steps to hide it from you…and everyone else. When the hallucination integrates with reality, it's much harder to shake."

"So…what do we do?"

"Normal protocol for treatment is to administer anti-psychotics to deal with the immediate problem and then follow-up with psychotherapy, but…."

'This isn't a normal situation," Eliza finishes. "We have no way of knowing how he'll react to antipsychotics. And the limited blood samples I had, I've spent testing potential treatments for his lead allergy. I've had some progress on that, by the way, but this seems like the more pressing issue."

"Without knowing more, we need to assume that his psychosis could take a turn for the worse at any moment. Mon-El should be hospitalized, both for the safety of others and for his own well-being."

"Safety of others?" Kara asks, realizing what Alex was saying. "You want to put him back into a cell?"

"Isolation," Alex corrects. "For his own good."

"But in a cell," Kara answers, only partially succeeding in stuffing down the rising panic. "After everything we—after everything _I_ —put him through when he first arrived. After Medusa? You want to put him back in a cell like he can't be trusted."

"Kara, he's on the verge of a full-blown psychotic break. It sounds like he's fighting it for the moment, but there's no predicting how long he has before his mind completely fractures and he can no longer tell the difference between the hallucination and reality. And if that break happens and he experiences another flashback like the one he had last night…Kara, I know it's painful, but locking him up really is the best for everyone. At least until we can find a way to purge him of the hallucination."

It is a gut-wrenching decision, and one Kara had hoped would be only a worst case scenario. But here she is being asked to make the decision to lock him again. This time was infinitely worse than the first. Kara recalls Mon-El's remorse over accidentally injuring a drunk college student after a friendly arm-wrestling match and she knows that Mon-El wouldn't want to harm anyone else. "Okay," she nods regretfully, making her decision. "We'll play this your way. We'll lock him up."

A noise at the doorway gets her attention and she spins around to find Mon-El standing at the doorway, a look of abject betrayal on his face. So caught up in their conversation, none of the women had noticed his arrival, to their detriment.

"Mon-El," Kara exclaims, frightfully. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough," he replies, his voice low and his eyes hard like titanium.

Mon-El putters around the loft, finishing the washing of the sheets and then making the bed to the best of his abilities. He watches a few episodes of a delightful show called 'Chuck' before his mind begins to wander to more lascivious territories. Ral, the best 'wing man' a brother could ask for, is right there with him beating the drum.

"So..." Ral drawls as she sprawled across one Kara's living room chairs, looking like the most bored person on the planet. "Nth metal?" he posits. "Think she'll go for that? That's a _lot_ of trust you're asking."

"She trusts me," Mon-El reassures Ral confidently. "Look how far we've come in so short a time. I would never hurt her and by now…she knows that."

"But all the _activities_ ," Ral clears his throat suggestively, "you've participated in have been with the clear understanding that she could overpower you at any time if she felt uncomfortable. I mean, she won't be able to get out of cuffs made from N-metal."

'That's the idea."

"That might bother her."

"It might also give her a few moments of feeling like a normal human, in a controlled and sensual situation. It's not like I'm going to be hurting her. Besides…as always…the choice is hers. She only needs to say the word and I stop. Her trust is the most valuable thing I've ever earned. I have no desire to lose it."

"So how are we… _you_ …going to get your hands on the Nth metal shackles?"

"A little distraction, a little sleight of hand, a pinch of super speed," Mon-El shrugs, unconcerned. "Not to worry, my friend. Which reminds me…I should get moving. I need to spend a few hours at the DEO before I start my shift at the bar tonight."

"Lead the way," Ral says.

Mon-El had hoped to sneak into the DEO unnoticed and retrieve the shackles before anyone was the wiser, but upon his arrival Winn accosts him as though he'd been trolling the security cameras for any sign of him.

"Buddy!" Winn greets him, a huge grin on his face, that Mon-El can't help but think is a little artificial. Only yesterday, after his coming-out as Valor, Winn had seemed angry at him for reasons he had never determined, but now that seems to have been wiped away like footprints in a sandstorm. Winn throws an arm around Mon-El's taller shoulders, who retreats a bit, confused by the sudden shift in attitude.

"I thought you were mad at me about something," Mon-El replies.

"Mad at you?" Winn asks, hoping to play off yesterday's attitude as a circumstance thoroughly misread by Mon-El. "What are you—oh! Are you talking about my mood yesterday? That can happen sometimes. I was under a lot of pressure," he obfuscates.

But Mon-El is as adept at perceiving deception as Winn at assembling proverbial puzzle pieces.

Recognizing that camaraderie isn't getting him anywhere, Winn changes his tactics. "Did I mention that I'm sorry for being a tool yesterday?" he chuckles uncomfortably, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Look, man, I was short with you and that wasn't fair. Maybe we can go to the bar sometime and talk about it over drinks and darts. I'm going to need to get drunk for that conversation," he cringes.

With a flash of inspiration, Mon-El sees the whole board, all the pieces he was missing yesterday because he was too caught up with worry about the consequences of becoming Valor. The joking about his sex life combined with their discussion about Romeo and Juliet, which makes much more sense now that he has crucial context, provide a moment of clarity allowing Mon-El to hypothesize about Winn's recent behavioral shifts. "You know about me and Kara, don't you?"

"Apparently not that drunk," Winn mutters with a wince.

"What gave it away?"

"I'm a pretty smart guy, Mon-El, and your subtlety needs refining. It was clear you were 'seeing' someone, but when you mentioned Romeo and Juliet a cohesive picture managed to form."

"I'm sorry if you were…are…hurt," Mon-El says. He stuffs his hands into the pocket of his jeans, mirroring the man in front of him, both of them a little wide of their comfort zones in this discussion.

"I've known a long time that Kara doesn't see me that way. I was angry at first, sure, but not so much about her. I was angrier at myself for not being what she needs. And that has nothing to do with you. Besides, I talked it over with James and he made me see that it wasn't about Kara, it was more about the fact that I don't have anyone in my life right now."

"You talked it over...with James?" Mon-El asks, apprehensively. "So James knows?"

Winn's face falls. "Oh man, I'm sorry! I didn't think! I just had all this stuff in my head and I couldn't talk to _you_ about it, and James is my friend and—"

"Relax, Winn. It was going to come out sooner or later, but I should give Kara a heads-up so she's not blindsided." Mon-El scans the CIC for his girlfriend.

"She's still at CatCo," Winn informs him. "I'm afraid if she was going to get blindsided…it's probably happened by now."

"Great," Mon-El sighs.

"Don't worry," Winn attempts to reassure his friend. "It's probably a conversation they need to have. James is a gentleman and Kara can hold her own. Try not worry about it."

"I know all of that and yet it doesn't make me feel any better." He doesn't know James all that well, but his read on the man is that, like Winn, he once had romantic designs upon Kara. Designs which may be still very much in play. But he also senses a man of honor beneath all of that and believes James will surrender the field should Kara make it clear that's what she needs.

But Mon-El's biggest concern isn't about James, it's about Kara, as usual. Forcing her into an emotional confrontation on any timeline but her own probably isn't the best battle plan and can potentially drive her farther away. Mon-El hopes that such a confrontation doesn't result in a heartbroken Kara who's protected her heart by saying things she doesn't mean.

"Luckily," Winn says, distracting Mon-El from his thoughts, "I have just the thing to take your mind off your worries."

"And what might that be?"

"J'onn came to me this morning and ask me to license a certain Kevlar fabric from Kord industries. Now…my memory can be spotty sometimes—that's me being self-deprecating, by the way—but I seem to recall that we were just talking about that material night before last…." Winn trails off, waiting for Mon-El to confirm.

Mon-El crosses his arms, schooling his face to remain willfully passive. He knows exactly where this is headed and he plans to enjoy watching Winn get there.

"No?" Winn asks, shaking his head slightly, completely unaware that Mon-El is playing him like a string quartet. "Okay…well, J'onn didn't say anything else, he just did that inscrutable, enigmatic, arm-crossing head tilt, eyebrow-raise thing that he does and walked away. Now, Kara may be able to shoot white-hot laser beams out of her eyeballs, but I'm good at working things out and I think I know what's going on here."

"You do?" he asks, his face a mask of (faux) innocence.

Winn glances around like he's a burglar on lookout and leans toward Mon-El, lowering his voice. "You're him, aren't you? The _new_ guy?" He manages to ask without hardly moving his lips at all. "I mean…it's not exactly a secret around here that the security could be better."

"And?"

"And you've been living in this place for that last few months, meaning you probably know your way around like it's the back of your hand."

"What does that even mean?" Mon-El intentionally stalls. "Like the back of your hand? How does one _know_ the back of their hand? I mean…let's face it," he chuckles, "it's easier to get to know the front of your hand, am I right? One can become _quite_ intimate—""

"It's just a figure of speech," Winn responds, completely clueless that Mon-El is attempting to distract him. "It means to know something really well."

"The subtext was clear," he reassures him, before insisting, "Subtext is _my_ talent. You become an expert at subtext when your life depends on it."

Winn opens his mouth to speak and then slams it shut, his head tilting curiously. Mon-El mentally kicks himself for letting that tidbit from his past slip. "What does that—"

"Nothing," Mon-El interjects with a shake of his head, suddenly happy to return to their original subject. Ral stands behind Winn, his arms crossed, one eyebrow raised, as though he is expecting something from him. He swallows with some effort, his mouth suddenly flooding with a bitter taste on the back of his tongue. His stomach clenches and rolls as he fights off the onset of nausea, his vision turning white and grey around the edges.

"Hey, are you okay, buddy?" Winn asks, his voice becoming serious.

Mon-El marshals his strength and his long-ago honed ability to wear a smile in almost any situation, no matter how humiliating or painful and takes a step away. He throws his hands up in the air and grins. "You got me! Don't know," he chuckles forcefully, "don't know why I ever tried to pull one over on a genius like you. I'm the guy."

Winn's eyes glaze over as he lets this news sink in for a moment, before his face lights up like a fireworks display. "I knew it!" he exclaims. "Who else knows?" There's a desperate gleam in the younger man's eyes like he needs to be thrown a bone, or the collective disappointments he's experienced this week will become too much.

Conspiratorially, Mon-El's eyes do their own sweep of the surrounding area, over Winn's head before answering. "Well, J'onn…obviously. And Kara."

"That's it?" Winn inquires excitedly. "I made third on the list?"

"J'onn and Kara _both_ tell Alex everything…if she hasn't figured it out already."

"Fourth," Winn corrects. "That's okay…fourth is awesome. I can live with fourth."

"You're definitely in the loop now," Mon-El confirms. "I'm sure James will find out soon. He assigned Kara the story on me…uh Valor...so eventually she's going to have to spill the beans."

"Well I hope she does it soon," Winn frets a little. "I'm really not good in keeping this kind of secret from my friends."

"You mean about how you and James are…what's the word? Moonlighting? As this new hero Guardian?"

Winn's jaw drops, opening and closing like a landed fish gasping for water. "How did you…how did you…?"

"Subtext," Mon-El answers, his eyebrows waggling. "I see things, Winn. As you pointed out…up until last night, I lived here. When you're always around people have a tendency to forget that you're there around every corner. My quarters were right next to the training room. You two had more than a few chats about his 'suit' and I have a super hearing. And I've noticed how antsy and defensive you both get when Kara brings up Guardian. You're not the only one who can put together pieces."

"You haven't said anything to her, have you?" Mon-El can see a sheen of perspiration bead up at Winn's hair line as the man's voice grows ever more nervous.

"I think you'd know it if I did."

Winn imagines Kara's rampage. "Good point. Are you going to?"

"It's not my secret to tell," Mon-El decides. In all honesty he's had other things to worry about, and the moments when he's caught the peripherals of Winn and James in the midst of their new hobby have been thoroughly entertaining. Too entertaining to want to put it to a premature end. "But don't think I won't, if I think for a moment your extracurriculars are putting her in danger." There may be more to worry about now than just her.

"Understood."

"Now what was it you said you had for me?"

"Oh right! The design for your suit," Winn shifts instantly into a mode of excitation. "I thought we could look them over, talk color scheme, make any changes you think necessary, and maybe get some measurements so I know how much material to license."

"Sounds like a plan," Mon-El agrees. If Kara isn't here, he like the idea of having something meaningful to do that isn't running endlessly on the treadmill or binge watching programs on Netflix.

"I promise I'm going to make you look great!" Winn enthuses, leading Mon-El back to his bank of computers. "Just you wait."

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

Author's Notes:

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

 _And all I gave you is gone_

 _Tumbled like it was stone_

 _Thought we built a dynasty that heaven couldn't shake_

 _Thought we built a dynasty like nothing ever made_

 _Thought we built a dynasty forever couldn't break up_

 _The scar I can't reverse_

 _When the more it heals the worse it hurts_

 _Gave you every piece of me, no wonder it's missing_

 _Don't know how to be so close to someone so distant_

 _-MIIA – "Dynasty"_

Chapter 8/8

For three hours they went over the designs for the suit. Winn had seven designs in all, and together they were able to jettison some elements as impractical, too bold, or otherwise inappropriate, until the remaining ideas came together to create something both workable and aesthetic.

"I like the red," Mon-El approves.

"It offsets Kara's blue," Winn nods. "I thought that would look nice," he preens a bit.

"It reminds me of Daxam's red sky." His mind drifts back to last night's dream and the vividness of it; the red sun over his head, the plum boscage at his fingertips. The crunch of the dead copper-blossoms beneath his knees as his wife's blood poured through his fingers, his son's life ebbing away inside of her. Mon-El's heart races and his gorge rises. He covers his mouth with his hands, squeezing his eyes shut in a desperate bid to keep from vomiting.

"It does?" Winn inquires, blissfully unaware of the other's vexation. Mon-El plays off his nausea-induced stress as a yawn, which has Winn doing a double-take. "Am I keeping you awake?" he snarks. "Long night?" Off of a stern look from Mon-El's steel-turned eyes, Winn gulps and asks, "Too soon?" Then, nodding, he turns back to his computer and answers his own question. "Too soon. I hear you. So what do you think about the boots…?"

"They're a little too high," he shrugs with one shoulder. "I'm not a pirate."

"Kara's boots are high," Winn explains.

"She wears a skirt," he argues, "the aesthetic looks better."

"Especially with those legs," Winn blurts, before he can stop himself. He cringes, anticipating a challenge of some sort or at least another steel-blue stare, but instead he watches out of the corner of his eye as Mon-El's lips quirk up on one side.

"Especially with those legs," he echoes, his voice turning husky.

"Oh-kay," Winn drawls, wishing he could scrub the look of blissful recollection on his friend's face from his mind. "So, we'll cut the boots back to below the knee. I'll have them lined with Kevlar to be safe…maybe add some steel toes." With a look from Mon-El, Winn corrects, "Steel toes taken care of…check."

"I don't see a cape in any of these designs," Mon-El points out, hoping his voice doesn't sound like a pout.

"No cape," Winn answers succinctly. "You don't want a cape."

"Of course I want a cape!"

"Trust me, you don't. Kara's cape is for aerodynamics. It helps with drag, she takes care of the lift. You don't fly, so all you'll get is drag. Not having a cape could mean the difference between making a 15 story leap and an 18 story leap. Cape is just going to weigh you down." Winn's analysis is succinct and doesn't leave much room for arguing. He chuckles, "You learn to fly…I'll build you a cape. Deal?"

Mon-El sighs and rolls his eyes, unable to hide his disappointment. "Deal."

"Plus, this way all the ladies will get a better view of your ass." Winn's eyes widen, as Mon-El side-eyes him. "Did I say that out loud?" With a defensive shrug he spouts, "What? I promised I'd make you look good…so I'm playing to your strengths!"

It took another hour to nail down the incidentals of the red suit, deciding on a high collar of royal blue to match the Kevlar-lined boots, an asymmetrical hemline on the shirt, skin tight pants that show the dips and creases of his musculature and a yellow belt with a center medallion containing a glyph of Daxam's sun shooting red rays of light.

Taking measurements in the locker room was a singularly uncomfortable experience in which Winn joked about never expecting their relationship to get this close.

Ral was there the whole time laughing at Mon-El's discomfort.

Heading back to the CIC after Winn said he had all he needed for the time being, Mon-El overhears an agent commenting that Dr. Danvers had arrived unexpectedly a while ago. Hospitality on this planet demands that he stop by and pay his respects to her – but also he's always enjoyed talking to her in the past. She projects a motherly warmth for which Mon-El has secretly always yearned.

"You want to be charming," Ral reminds him, unnecessarily, "but not _too_ charming. Remember…the last time you saw her you were only _thinking_ about defiling her daughter. You weren't actually doing it."

Mon-El stops in his tracks and glares pointedly at Ral, who grins widely, before walking onward. "No one's defiling anyone," Mon-El says surreptitiously between clenched teeth.

"Hmmm…I wonder if Dr. Danvers will see it that way…." Ral torments him. Admittedly, Mon-El has some concerns about seeing Dr. Danvers again, now that he's mated to her adoptive daughter.

His gut clenches with concern, but he stays his course. "Why do I keep you around?"

"Because I know things, Brother. Things you've forgotten and don't seem inclined to remember. It's right there," Ral says, needling him. "Right there under the surface. So close you can feel it bubbling up. Sometimes you think you hear the wails inside your head or see the flames in your mind's eye. And the smell of the blood, of charred skin and heads on fire like screaming candlesticks…."

"Stop," Mon-El begs. Suddenly finding himself breathless, his heart racing, he places his hand against the smooth concrete wall and tucks his face into his arm, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. Behind his eyelids, white and gray flash and flicker like the screaming, flickering bulbs of the intrusive cameras belonging to rabid reporters and paparazzi. "You have to stop."

"On the contrary, brother, I have to continue – if that's what it takes. Now that you've seen the truth, or at least part of it, you need to let the rest in. It's the only way to make you whole."

"Whole," he echoes. "I'm more whole here, now…with her…than I ever felt for even a single moment of my life back there."

"Good…that's good. There may come a time when you need to choose between hanging on to me and losing her, or letting go in order to have the life you want, and you'll do well to remember that. But that day, that loss, and everything that led up to it…the choices you made…will always be a specter over your head for as long as you refuse to give it its due. Let it in," Ral urges. "Feel it. Accept the pain of it, so that you can make it a part of who you are and move on. There's still work to be done and you can't keep it at a distance forever."

"I know," Mon-El breathes, seeing the truth of Ral's words for the first time.

"Sir, are you alright?" an astute DEO employee walking by stops to ask, noticing Mon-El's distress. He recognizes her as one of the medical practitioners often seen in the med-bay and her lab coat identifies her as such.

"I'm fine, thank you. Just..." his vision flashes white and gray again ad he rubs his eyes, "a bit of a headache."

"Would like an escort to the med-bay?" the woman asks.

Mon-El tosses Ral a glance and nods, "Actually, I was just on my way to see Dr. Danvers."

"I just saw her in the conference room, sir. With Agent Danvers and Supergirl."

"Supergirl's here?"

"Just flew in a few minutes ago," the agent informs him. "Do you need help?"

"No, I've got this." Mon-El straightens his spine, gives the woman a reassuring smile, and lies, "I'm feeling much better now, thanks."

The medic regards him suspiciously for a moment before nodding and walking away. Mon-El watches as she goes, waiting until she disappears around the corner before altering his course in the direction of the conference room.

"You're…not looking so good," Ral declares.

He doesn't feel so good either. It's not anything he can pinpoint or put a finger on, like a fever or a choking cough. It doesn't feel like the sickness created by the Medusa virus, but rather a profound foreboding that fills his chest and spreads down his spine like the tendrils of Velestrian Rot, a black vine that burrows deep, growing out of control until it breaks apart the very thing to which its attached. His fingers tingle and his eyes sting incessantly.

He doesn't mean to eavesdrop but his powers appear to be fritzing out. It occurs to him that he may be experiencing withdrawals from going more than twenty-four hours without siphoning electricity. Ral had claimed it was becoming an addiction. Perhaps he had been right—he usually is.

 _"_ _Safety of others?"_ he overhears Kara ask, but doesn't know to whom she speaks. Is there something brewing out there? Perhaps Cadmus is up to some new tricks? Something for which he needs to prepare _. "You want to put him back into a cell?"_

Mon-El halts in his tracks just outside the conference room. This is interesting. Who is she talking about?

 _"_ _Isolation,"_ he hears Alex say, her tone one of pacifying rationalization _. "For his own good."_

 _"_ _But in a cell,"_ Kara repeats _. "After everything we—after everything I—put him through when he first arrived. After Medusa? You want to put him back in a cell like he can't be trusted."_

Mon-El's heart speeds up because it sounds like they could be talking about…him. Are they talking about him? Talking about putting him in a cell, like when he first arrived? After everything he's done, how hard he's worked to prove himself? To prove he can be trusted?

 _"_ _Kara, he's on the verge of a full-blown psychotic break. It sounds like he's fighting it for the moment, but there's no predicting how long he has before his mind completely fractures and he can no longer tell the difference between the hallucination and reality. And if that break happens and he experiences another flashback like the one he had last night…Kara, I know it's painful, but locking him up really is the best for everyone. At least until we can find a way to purge him of the hallucination."_

"They know about me," Ral says. "It was only a matter of time, of course. Especially with how close you two have been getting. You can't keep these things secret forever."

"Alex thinks they can take you away from me," Mom-El says, a dark rage rising inside of him, a fever building that spreads up his neck and face until he can feel it burning beneath his skin.

"Let her believe what she likes, brother. She can't _take_ me away. No one has the power to do that."

Mon-El tunes back in, listening for what comes next, waiting to hear Kara's voice of reason…and hope. He knows, without a doubt, that she believes in him. Trusts him. She just asked him to move into her loft with her so that she can help him deal with the nightmares and now, the flashbacks; there's no way she going to give up on him so quickly and so easily. She always fights for the ones she loves.

 _"_ _Okay," Kara's voice agrees. "We'll play this your way. We'll lock him up."_

For the second time in his life, Mon-El's entire world crumbles around him. She didn't even fight for him, didn't come to his defense. He had been so certain that she would, so certain that everything they'd shared had meant as much to her as it means to him.

They'd talked about sharing a life, about having a family, and here she is bartering all of that away because he's…too damaged. She'll take everything away from him if he allows this. If he doesn't do something, doesn't move or take a stand, she'll take away everything he's earned and worked so hard for. His job, his friends; she'll take away Valor.

A righteous rage mixes and swirls with the heartbreak he feels inside. He won't be locked up. Not again. Not after what his father did.

"Now you're feeling it," Ral exclaims. "Let it come, Brother."

Mon-El shakes him off, ignoring the gnat that whispers in his ear, focusing only on the red that closes in around his vision, locking down his sight until it focuses like a laser beam, focuses on her. Her head whips around to see him standing in the door, and her eyes widen with surprise, her eyebrows crinkling as though already preparing to tell him lies.

"Remember when I said not to worry about the time and the place?" Ral asks. "That I would take care of it? This seems like as good a place as any other."

Mon-El grits his teeth and steels his resolve.

"Mon-El," Kara exclaims, frightfully. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough," he grinds out.

"Mon-El, you're not—" she tries.

"Don't," he says, raising his voice and his hand. "Just don't."

"Looks like some people just don't get the same consideration others do," Ral needles in a practically blasé manner, sounding for all the world like he's stoking Mon-El's anger to a fine rage.

Mon-El turns on Ral, pointing a finger. "You…shut the hell up for once!"

Kara's heart constricts, her throat closing as Mon-El reveals to her for the first time the depths of his psychosis. "Mon-El," she cries, covering her mouth with her hands.

Dr. Danvers exchanges a look with Alex before slowly rising from her chair and inching away from him. Alex's eyes harden and she reaches for her belt.

"Man's got a point, though," Mon-El shouts, his adrenaline surging unlike anything he's ever felt before. The taste of it in the back of his throat is like battery acid. Looking at her, at this woman he fell in love with and by whom he is betrayed, he can feel the walls inside of him splintering, bursting apart like a cage outgrown by its captive. "How long did _you_ get, Kara?" he wonders.

She sees him changing, breaking right in front of her and it's everything she didn't know she feared. His handsome face transforms into a monstrosity a red anger, his lips turning an alarming shade of…gray? "I don't understand," she shakes her head, expressing her own confusion, rather than answering his query.

"How long did your precious adoptive family give you to grieve all that you had lost? Did you a get a _whole_ three months like you've given me? Is this the extent of your _generosity_? Did they threaten to lock you away because you were too broken to be fixed?"

"Mon-El, we're trying to—"

"If you say 'help', Kara, so help me Rao." Mon-El blinks furiously, his eyes watering, unable to clear the angry red of his vision. "I see my dead brother," he confesses. "I talk to him when I need to work things out, or sometimes when I just need a friend. I'm not going to be told that's wrong by a woman who keeps a virtual construct shrine to her dead mother."

Kara gasps and swallows the acrid acid taste in her mouth that rises in the face of his vitriol…and his truth. "It's not the same," she insists, though her tone lacks conviction.

"Oh, I know," he shouts, his voice grating on her heart like sandpaper. "The difference is I _know_ that Ral is dead…in my heart. It happened right before my eyes. I'm not still holding on to _hope_. You know what I'm also not doing?" he asks. "I'm not going back to that cell."

"It's okay," she promises. "I just need you to calm down."

"I don't get to be angry now? Of course," he scoffs, "The woman I love betrays me and you still expect me to be your little lap dog. Doing whatever you tell me, _being_ whatever _you_ want me to be."

He doesn't know what he's saying, where all these words are coming from. They spill from his mouth like a vomit of long buried but now unrestrained bitterness. Just this morning, he made love to her as if she were his world and he thought she felt the same. But now, looking at her feels like she's just another jailer, holding the keys to his shackles.

Tears streak down her face as her heart breaks. She came here seeking help for him and never intended to betray him, but he would never see it that way, not in this state. She wipes the tears from her face, looking up to see four agents approaching him from behind.

Something slams him in the back, followed in quick succession by three more blows, one in the back of the head that brings him to his knees. Before he can gain his bearings his wrists are gathered in front of him and a pair of Nth metal cuffs are placed on them.

A thought flashes through Mon-El's mind, that this is not how he planned to obtain Nth metal cuffs today. He scoffs angrily at the irony, but the thought only serves to inflame his rage, reminding him that just this morning, despite the specter of death that hung over his head, his whole world was shaping up quite nicely.

"Alex, what did you do?" he hears Kara ask her sister.

"I pressed my panic button," she replies.

"Please," Kara begs the agents who are dragging Mon-El to his feet. "Please don't hurt him." She steps forward toward Mon-El, but Alex grabs her arm to stop her.

The agents' mistake is pausing before attempting to place Nth shackles on his ankles. He throws them off with ease, watching as Kara's and Alex's widen in surprise as two of the agent fly through the glass windows. Despite the verbal confrontation and his clear distress, neither of them expected him to get violent. But clearly they had underestimated his psychosis.

Crashing through the glass, the agents fly over the balcony and forcing Kara to speed to their rescue, leaving Mon-El alone with Alex and Dr. Danvers. Hyperaware of her need to protect her mother, Alex draws her weapon and points it at Mon-El, but anticipating her move he speeds to her and tears the gun from her hand, crushing it in his fist.

He considers throwing the chunk of metal at one of the remaining agents, but before he can decide, he's grabbed from behind in a chokehold by an arm with which he is intimately familiar and the world is whizzing past until he and Kara are in the open atrium of the DEO's top floor. "I don't want to hurt you," she shouts, begs.

"You already have," he chokes, her strength crushing down on his larynx. His red vision grays around the edges, until his father appears before him and everything goes red-hot again. "No!" he screams.

"You'll do as I say," his father declares, his own steel-gray eyes staring coldly back at him with a sneer on his full lips. "And never forget that you are…utterly…replaceable. Did you honestly think that you were only one?"

Ignoring the pressure at his neck, Mon-El wrenches himself free. "I'll kill you for what you did to me. I will never give you what you want."

When he shakes Kara off, she's thrown back several feet, knocking her into the light table, both smashing it to smithereens and shocking the hell out of her at the same time as thousands of volts of electricity pass through her.

"You will," his father insists, a smile of victory spreading slowly across his face. "And until you do…I think I'll keep our dear Morgon here as collateral. Whether or not he's returned to you in one piece, depends entirely upon the speed with which you comply."

Ral drops to his knees in front of Mon-El, broken and bloodied, one eye swollen shut. "Leave this place, Brother," he whispers. 'The first chance you get…run. Forget about me…he will never let you be free."

"What have you done?" Mon-El shouts, focusing his rage on his father.

"Just a promise…with more to come." Waving his hand with a careless, carefree gesture, he commands, "Take him away."

The scene in his mind shifts again like a red swipe across his vision and Daxam is crumbling around him once more. Ral is sprawled at his feet, his wrists and legs in chains as the room shakes and trembles. His legs are broken, meticulously broken with great care, so as to increase initial pain and long-term suffering, but that isn't what draws his attention this time.

Like the chains, it is a detail he hadn't seen before—his mind hadn't _let_ him see—the swaths of dried blood caked on Ral's cheeks, stemming from the empty sockets where his eyes once were.

"No, no, no…what he did he do?" Mon-El cries reaching down to touch his brother's face. "What did he do?"

"Extracted a price," Ral answers, as the smell of smoke and the sound of screams filter through the air. "A price that no longer matters, it seems."

"He only did this because of me," Mon-El cries. "Because I wouldn't give him what he wanted."

"Not your fault," Ral reaches out blindly and grabs Mon-El's collar, pulling him closer. "Every drop of blood taken from me is a price well paid if it means this venal House finally dies with him. Know that I regret none of it, so long as _that_ is the outcome." A loud boom fills the air causing the ground to shake beneath them and Ral chuckles, despite his obvious pain. "The gods of Val-Or side with you this day. With both of us."

"How can you say that?"

"Because this is your chance to get away from this place. The prison doors are open."

"What about you?"

"You have to leave me, I'll only slow us both down. You can still escape. He took my eyes, brother," Ral winces, blood gurgling up to his teeth, his injuries far worse than they initially appeared. "I'll never see my beloved Melis again – unless it's in the afterlife. A place I'll be seeing sooner rather than later, if the gods are good to me once more."

"I won't let you die here," Mon-El insists.

"You will," Ral cough, blood and spittle spewing from his mouth. "And you will make me one last promise."

Torn, a scream of heartbroken rage wells up within him, pushing its way through his clenched teeth. His brother-in-bond is dying and there's nothing he can do for him, but fulfill a final wish. "What is it?" he asks.

"Find a way," Ral coughs again. "After this place is gone and that old despot is dead…find a way to restore what was great about Daxam."

"What was great…? I don't understand."

Another boom rocks the building, chunks of the ceiling falling around them both. "There's no time," Ral rasps ever more weakly around horribly split lips. "You have to go now, before you're buried with me. You'll find a way," Ral says, and Mon-El knows he isn't talking about escaping.

Mon-El backs away towards the cell's only exit, reluctant to leave the only man he's ever called friend – called family. The only person who's only truly loved him for him.

Sensing his bond-brother's reluctance, Ral's voice softens, "I'm already a memory, brother. Go before it's too late."

Just as he reaches the doorway, he looks back just in to time to see a chunk of the stone ceiling fall and strike Ral in the head, caving in a large portion of his skull.

It is a killing blow, he knows, instantly sparing his brother from a slow agonizing death from internal bleeding. It is a death for which to thank the gods, but instead he feels only rage for stealing the life of the only good thing he ever had in his life. The only thing that was ever his.

Mon-El hands fist tightly as his anger and grief wells up within him and then overflows. "Noooooo!" he screams.

Mon-El isn't with them anymore, if he ever had been in the last few horrible minutes. He's somewhere deep inside his own fractured mind, remembering traumatic events of long ago as if they were happening for the first time – like cutting away healthy flesh to find a bloody, festering wound beneath. Regaining her feet, struggling to overcome the effects electricity has on her, Kara manages to shake off her disorientation and move towards him just as two things happen at once.

"Nooooooo!" he screams, blind eyes focused on something she can't see while his hands fist together hard enough to stress the bone.

And then the room explodes.

"Get down, get down!" Kara screams, as agents dive for cover under and behind any available protective surface. Red beams of light shoot around the cavernous room cutting through everything they touch like a soldering iron. His sudden onset heat vision is made all the more uncontrollable by the fact that his feet are hovering several inches from the ground.

He mumbles incoherently for the most part, only the occasional phrase making sense inside the chaos he creates. "Where is he!?" he demands. "Where has he gone?" His ravings continue as Kara ushers people to safety, her first priority getting them out of the line of his unintentional fire. When the last of the agents is removed to safety she considers her options as she observes his delirious raving. "Looking for this—"

Taking flight, Kara shoots toward him, striking him at mid-level and pulling him down to the ground, both of them sliding across the floor until they're buried in a wall. The beams of red-hot heat shoot into the ceiling, which crumbles around them. She can barely restrain him as he thrashes beneath her and she doesn't know what she's supposed to do, but she has to end this before someone gets seriously injured.

It tears her heart out, the inhuman sounds he makes, as if he's reached down into the deepest parts of himself and found his most excruciating pain, bringing it to the surface and using his own voice as its release valve. Where is he now, she wonders? Marinating in some hellish mind palace with no way out but death?

Kara covers his vision beams with her hands, absorbing them and keeping them doing any more damage.

"He's out of control, Kara!" she hears Alex shouting.

She knows her sister is right. He's out of control and out of his mind and there's only one thing she can do. Balling her hand in a fist, she rears back and slams it in his jaw, once and then a second time, both times his head rolling right back like a ball-ended punching bag that always comes back for more.

"Yes," he seethes, his voice filled with hatred. "Kill me," he shouts, lost in a delusion she can't understand. "Kill me now, if you can! Your last—"

His next words are drowned out when he turns his head, his laser beams striking the glass walls to the outdoor balcony, causing them to shatter and explode. Thousands of tiny glass missiles spray the atrium like a glittering rain of deadly diamonds.

"Mon-El," she sobs, her face wet with tears. "Please?" Kara begs, but she doesn't know what she's begging for, maybe praying for, other than for it to end. Like an answer to her heartfelt but unarticulated prayer, his heat vision sputters out as he lay beneath her, as if he's gained some measure of control.

She punches him again, blood splattering from his noise and upper lip, which is when she realizes he hasn't gained control of his heat vision, but has simply expended the reserves of yellow sun radiation in his cells—solar flaring—which makes him utterly vulnerable.

His eyes widen as his mind flares to lucidity to find Kara hovering over him, her fist coming down towards his face with alarming force. In the instant that her fist makes contact, and pain explodes in his head, he's certain that death awaits him.

His last thought as darkness closes in around him is that this morning he awoke a hero, and somewhere along the line, without knowing where he mis-stepped, he became a villain.

The End

(To be continued)


End file.
